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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77582 ***
+
+                              THE SCORPION
+
+
+                       BY ANNA ELISABET WEIRAUCH
+
+
+
+
+                              The Scorpion
+
+
+                          Translated from the
+                               German by
+                           WHITTAKER CHAMBERS
+
+                          WILLEY BOOK COMPANY
+                                New York
+
+
+             Copyright, 1932, by Greenberg: Publisher, Inc.
+                            Revised Edition
+                Copyright, 1948, by Willey Book Company
+
+                Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+                                   I
+
+
+Frankly, I desired to make Myra’s acquaintance because of her evil
+reputation.
+
+It was from Aunt Antonia that I first heard of her. Aunt Antonia was a
+very pious and respectable lady, and lies and slander were alien to her.
+She saw things with a sharp eye, but saw them from a set viewpoint.
+
+According to her tale, Myra had even as a child exhibited a peculiar
+propensity to lying and stealing. In school she was considered stupid
+and lazy. As a young girl, she had run around with a remarkable woman, a
+fashionably dressed sharper, with a decidedly masculine manner. Misled,
+perhaps, by this friend, she had stolen her father’s silver service and
+pawned it. After a fit of downright insanity during which she tried to
+strangle her aunt, who had been the motherless child’s faithful
+guardian, she was dispatched to her Uncle George in a small town. There
+she stole everything not nailed down, very skillfully forced her uncle’s
+desk and, appropriating a large sum of money, fled.
+
+Her father, a mental man of a most sensitive nature, did not long
+survive this news: he died of a stroke.
+
+Myra’s mother had died in giving her life. “Luckily,” as Uncle George
+was wont to say bitterly.
+
+But Myra did not share his opinion. She had a fantastic notion of what a
+mother is, and believed that her own mother’s premature death was the
+cause of all the misfortunes in her life.
+
+For my part, I cannot say which view is correct. Certain it is, that
+Myra’s childhood would not have been as dismal and joyless as under Aunt
+Emily’s bony fingers; at the same time, even the gentlest of mothers’
+hands could not have saved her from the bitterest struggles of her life.
+And when I recall the latter, I understand Uncle George’s “luckily”
+quite well. Doubtless he had a clearer picture of his sister than Myra
+could possibly have had.
+
+Little Myra was not to go to school; her father, Franz Rudloff himself
+ordered it so. He had an almost morbid fear of anything that suggested
+“the common people.” It seemed to him as if his cool, high-ceilinged
+home would be contaminated with the exhalations of poorly ventilated
+class-rooms, as if his quiet walls would re-echo to hundreds of shrill
+voices, to hundreds of trampling feet, were he to send his daughter to
+school.
+
+So a governess came to the house.
+
+Aunt Emily was in secret opposition from the first. She had gone to
+school, and school had not harmed her in any way. Quite the contrary.
+
+She was absolutely opposed to the idea that anybody in this world should
+have anything better than she had or had had. One of the few pleasures
+she permitted herself in life was that of “impartial justice,” as she
+called it. That is to say, if anyone is getting along undeservedly well,
+he must be made to suffer for his unmerited good fortune by some heavy
+blow of fate.
+
+Other people have another name for this type of pleasure.
+
+Aunt Emily was “against” the teacher. But Aunt Emily was much too much
+of a model to object when the master of the house expressed a desire.
+She knew that in such cases she must submit in silence. Not that poor
+Franz would ever have _demanded_ it of her. Oh dear no! But it was the
+proper thing to do. So she pinched the corners of her mouth a little
+tighter and submitted in silence.
+
+The teacher had such wavy, wayward hair that the brown curls refused to
+be laid flat and were always fluttering about her face. Moreover, she
+had the disposition which, according to the proverb, goes with such
+hair. All the men who had played a brief or a lengthy rôle in her life
+declared she would have made a ravishing lover. She was somewhat less
+qualified to educate a little girl.
+
+Aunt Emily had not chosen her. That had been quite definitely Franz
+Rudloff’s and Myra’s concern. One thing father and daughter had in
+common—all their senses thirsted for beauty and harmony. They put a
+premium on externals, as Aunt Emily expressed it.
+
+The governess, the “young lady,” had such a charming, girlish face, such
+gentle gestures and such a beautiful, vibrant voice.
+
+But it was no sense of personal interest that attracted Franz Rudloff to
+the “young lady.” It was simply that if he must take a stranger into his
+house, he preferred that she be an agreeable creature. Perhaps he was,
+to a degree unsuspected by himself, heartily sick of a disagreeable one.
+
+Myra’s case was different. She had never in all her life seen any human
+soul that so appealed to her. All her eager child’s heart, which neither
+love nor tenderness had ever filled, went out toward this stranger, this
+stranger who took her into her arms, who brushed the hair from her
+forehead with her gentle hands while her voice caressingly called her
+“darling” and “pet.” The prospect of having this person always near her
+was an inconceivable, a delirious joy.
+
+She did not beg her father. Myra Rudloff never could beg, not even if it
+were a question of her life.
+
+But when her father asked her if the “young lady” should come, she said,
+“Yes.” And the “young lady” came. But Aunt Emily pinched the corners of
+her mouth tighter and submitted in silence.
+
+In the next three or four years, while the “young lady” remained in the
+house, Myra experienced all the tortures of unhappy love.
+
+For the first few months everything went splendidly. That is the most
+unhappy part of an unhappy love—it always begins with an extravagant
+happiness.
+
+The “young lady” was very fond indeed of Myra, and Myra was very fond
+indeed of the “young lady,” and they studied together and played
+together and went for walks together. It was a glorious time. But like
+all glorious times, of brief duration.
+
+Surely some fiend suddenly cast the former lieutenant of hussars, von
+Hanston, in their path, that very lieutenant of hussars whom the “young
+lady” had loved ardently from the time when she was not a young lady at
+all, but was called Frieda Ellert and went to the seminary and danced at
+her first balls in the city where she was born.
+
+This former lieutenant of hussars had no very clean record behind him.
+He had had to leave the service on account of debts, and had since tried
+his hand at a little of everything. He referred to his present
+occupation only in very ambiguous, albeit in very high-sounding, terms.
+
+But that in no sense prevented the flame from kindling again in the
+“young lady’s” bosom, or Myra, “sweet little Myra, who was as good as
+gold,” from being a nuisance who was continually in the way.
+
+At first, Myra was simply cross when her “brother” paid the “young lady”
+a visit and the child was sent to her bedroom, because the “young lady”
+could not receive a gentleman in a room where there was a bed. Later
+they changed all that.
+
+It was enough to make anybody cross. And if the visits had continued and
+Myra had continued to be shut out, and if that cold, unfriendly tone
+which was habitual with the “young lady” these days, had continued, too,
+Myra’s burning love might have changed very quickly to hate—and all
+would have been well.
+
+But the devil alone knows, that same devil who had washed up von Hanston
+on Victoria Louisa Square one morning, what von Hanston had up his
+sleeve. Some private worries, no doubt, or debts or another little love
+affair—at any rate, the “young lady” presently began to feel aggrieved,
+and to mope and to weep all night.
+
+That was too much for Myra.
+
+Myra Rudloff did not cry easily. She did not believe that a human being
+could cry unless he were suffering the extremes of agonized despair.
+Therefore, she would have torn her heart out of her breast to comfort
+anyone who was crying.
+
+So when Frieda wept for her lieutenant of hussars, Myra suffered all the
+torments of Hell.
+
+At first, since the “young lady” did not want to wake the child, she
+wept softly; in fact, wept herself to sleep in a quarter of an hour. But
+when she observed that Myra woke up, or perhaps did not dare go to
+sleep, and made an effort to remain awake, listening to every breath,
+then she felt quite free to give vent to her grief and let herself be
+comforted.
+
+At the sound of the first sobs, Myra would jump out of her little bed
+and run in her bare feet across the bare floor. Then she would crouch at
+the “young lady’s” bedside and weep and shiver, and comfort her with her
+sweet, delicate child’s voice, and her gentle and good child’s hands.
+
+And the “young lady” permitted herself to be caressed and comforted
+while she braced her feet against the foot of the bed, bent back her
+head, tore the pillows with her nails and cried, “The dog! The
+scoundrel! I can’t stand it any longer! I’ll die! He’s killing me!”
+
+By the time that these scenes took place, Myra had already known for
+some while that these outbursts referred to the “brother,” and that this
+“brother” was no brother at all.
+
+She felt such a furious torment of hatred against the man that she often
+pondered with fierce intensity how she could manage to do away with him.
+
+These “nights of memories and of sighs” were bad. But they were by no
+means the worst. The worst was that the gentleman would appear again the
+next day and be received between laughter and tears, with open
+reproaches and hardly dissembled tenderness, and Myra would be sent to
+her room.
+
+Then Myra would grind her teeth and dig her nails into her palms, and
+give way to the most torturing rage.
+
+Myra was capable of much rudeness on these occasions. It was not her way
+to show sorrow when she was suffering. She preferred to be rude. Hence
+it is quite understandable that there were times when the “young lady”
+was furiously angry at her.
+
+Had Myra been able to tell how she felt inside, she would have wept and
+said, “I love you and I am jealous. Doubly jealous because your love is
+bestowed on a man who torments you and whom you pretend to despise. I
+suffer because I have to love a creature who has so little pride and
+character.”
+
+Myra went into the room, _her_ room that she was not permitted to enter
+while that hated “scoundrel” was sitting there. She entered without
+knocking, she carried her head very high and set her tiny foot down very
+firmly.
+
+She laid her books and notebooks on the table, opened the ink-well with
+a bang and pretended to be looking at the clock. She really was, but she
+was still so small that she had some difficulty in telling the time.
+
+“I have a lesson,” she said.
+
+“That scoundrel” sneered contemptuously and excused himself.
+
+“How dare she do such a thing?” the “young lady” hissed at her.
+
+Myra strove to think of some hateful reply, and she succeeded.
+
+“My father doesn’t pay you simply to keep that ‘scoundrel’ sitting here
+all the time!” she said.
+
+The “young lady” would have liked to strike her. But she shrank from the
+menacing gravity of the child’s pale face.
+
+Never had anybody dared strike Myra Rudloff, although many may have felt
+the temptation.
+
+The “young lady” caught her by the arm and shook her. She gripped the
+child so tightly that the pressure of her fingers was visible several
+days afterward as five blue marks on the tender skin.
+
+If Myra had blue marks on her arm once, she had them a hundred times, or
+welts on her shoulders, or scratches on her hands. Had she wanted to
+complain, help was assured. If she had just once showed Aunt Emily the
+traces of one such scene, instead of anxiously hiding them, “that
+person” would have gone for good. Myra knew this but did not want to do
+it. Hence she had to fight her battle through single-handed.
+
+When Frieda perceived that the child was superior to her, she changed
+her tactics. Myra must no longer be treated as an enemy, she must be
+made a confidante. Everything must be poured forth to Myra’s silent,
+little heart, all the joys and sorrows of this affair, and a whole mass
+of rubbish, besides.
+
+Myra had to stand watch, Myra had to convey letters and carry on
+telephone conversations, and Myra was showered with kisses and caresses.
+Another child might have been quite happy in this state of affairs. Myra
+continued to suffer.
+
+The difficulty probably lay in the fact that she detested the man so
+much. If it had been someone she liked, she might have accommodated
+herself more readily to the situation.
+
+Sometimes, when the “young lady” was in a mood to belabor her heart’s
+dearest, she would take the child on her knee and swear to leave that
+terrible man. Then amidst tears and oaths everything would be promised.
+
+“Yes, my darling, yes, my angel, he shall never cross that threshold
+again, the dirty dog! I have you, my pet, my comfort, I will live for
+you alone!”
+
+For Myra these were moments of an agonized bliss.
+
+But they were only moments, for all that, for when the telephone rang,
+or when a letter came, or when they met the gentleman “accidentally” in
+the public gardens, everything was forgotten again.
+
+Myra comprehended that here was something against which she could do
+nothing. She comprehended darkly that she had no right to demand a human
+being entirely for herself, because she was a child. And she burned with
+a desire to grow up quickly, quickly, in order to possess what she
+loved, wholly and solely.
+
+Then came that strange business with the silverware.
+
+One night the “young lady” gave Myra the keys to the silver closet and a
+shallow leather-covered case. Myra was to return the case to the closet.
+The “young lady” had borrowed it secretly because her bridegroom wanted
+to see the pretty silver.
+
+Myra wanted to see, too. She teased so long that the “young lady” opened
+the case. There were the thick, shiny spoons, row on row, each in its
+groove in the dark blue velvet. Not one was missing.
+
+Myra felt an irresistible pleasure in stealing down the long hall, as
+silently as a cat, groping her way in the dining-room without turning on
+the lights, cautiously unlocking the closet without the key’s grinding
+or the door’s creaking, laying the case in its place and looking up
+again. Then she had to suppress her joy with an effort as she flew into
+the “young lady’s” arms and let herself be praised.
+
+This first attempt was only an introduction. With astonishment and
+admiration Myra discovered the workings of the pawn system. It was quite
+miraculous—all one needed to do was lend silver or jewelry in order to
+receive a whole heap of money. And in a short time you received your
+things back again unharmed. Indeed, they were not even used during that
+time, as the “young lady” replied assuringly to Myra’s questions, with a
+laugh. It was a wonderful arrangement.
+
+It was so lovely to lie in bed at night and chatter and nibble candy.
+But candy was so terribly dear. Therefore, from time to time, the silver
+was “lent.” It did the silver no harm, and the secrecy with which it had
+to be taken and returned was a real lark.
+
+But once the big case was sent away and did not come back again. It was
+gone so everlastingly long that nobody gave a thought to it any longer.
+
+Then it occurred to Aunt Emily during house-cleaning one day to have all
+the silver counted over and cleaned. Aunt Emily knew to a fork-tine just
+how much silver was in the household. But Aunt Emily was much too much
+of a model to depend upon her memory in matters so tremendous. On the
+inside of each door in the sideboard was tacked a little slip of
+rice-paper on which was written in Aunt Emily’s eminently distinct and
+legible hand:
+
+                                Contents
+
+   A leather case with 12 soup spoons, monogram L. R.
+
+   A wooden case with 12 dessert spoons, monogram G. v. S.
+
+With the help of these lists she established beyond a doubt that one
+case was missing.
+
+Myra was not even frightened when she heard Aunt Emily’s shrill, excited
+voice and the weeping of the affronted maid. She was simply happy to be
+able to straighten out the situation. Thank heaven! Else poor Bertha
+would very likely have been suspected of stealing! Myra entered the room
+and said quite coolly and somewhat proudly, “You don’t need to be upset,
+Aunt. The silver is safe. I pawned it!”
+
+As a result of the next few days’ events, it gradually dawned on Myra
+that she had done something which, in the opinion of the others, she was
+not justified in doing.
+
+The house-maid told everybody who would listen to her that honest people
+were accused of stealing in her house because the “little brat” had
+“snitched” the silver and taken it to the pawnbroker.
+
+The fat old cook wept and wrung her hands in lamentation.
+
+Aunt Emily went about as if horror had turned her to stone. Tears came
+to the eyes of Myra’s father whenever he looked at his unhappy child. A
+children’s specialist even appeared on the scene, bearing the fearful
+and uncanny title of “psychiatrist,” and subjected Myra to a long
+examination.
+
+And the “young lady” stormed and wept and screamed at her, calling her
+an “idiot” and an “imbecile,” and kicked and scratched her, then fell on
+her knees before her, declaring she was a “little saint,” and imploring
+her “to keep quiet.”
+
+Myra “kept quiet.” But as she did not know what it was she should keep
+quiet about, she kept quiet about everything. She let them question her
+gently or angrily, during inquisitions that lasted for hours. She let
+them shake her, beseech her, let them lock her in her room—she would not
+talk. Her silence became a wall about her. She could no longer have
+broken it, had she wished.
+
+But the “young lady” had to leave anyway. Whether she was an accessory
+or innocent, it was clear that no child could be so abandoned if its
+education were in good hands.
+
+The “young lady” left. And Myra suffered all the mortal pangs of
+separation and loneliness.
+
+
+
+
+                                   II
+
+
+Myra was sent to school.
+
+But since they had deprived her of her “young lady,” she avenged herself
+by refusing to learn anything.
+
+It was more than a year before her defiance gradually wore down. Then it
+was too late to make up what she had lost. Nor did she want to. She did
+not make the slightest effort to catch up. But neither was it any longer
+worthwhile to resist. She did what was demanded of her because it was
+less troublesome to learn the bare rudiments than to be always listening
+to long scoldings and admonitory harangues.
+
+She grew incredibly fast at this period and was always tired.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+When she finished school, she stayed at home for a few years and bored
+herself. She took the usual piano lessons and practised the prescribed
+number of hours. But she had no inborn musical talent, though she did
+have an exaggerated sensitiveness, so that she suffered from the
+shortcomings of her own playing, without the ability, or even the
+determination, to make up her deficiencies.
+
+During these years her moods alternated like sun and showers in April.
+She longed to be dead, or to come of age, to be alive in another
+century, or some other part of the earth, to be a nun or so beautiful as
+to ravish the entire world.
+
+These were years barren of incident. So barren that Myra seldom recalled
+them, and if the conversation turned on anything that had happened
+during these years—a journey, a birth or a death among their
+acquaintances, or some public occurrence—she always had to think for a
+long time when it could have happened and how old she had been. On the
+other hand, she possessed an amazing memory for the period when people
+and things began to glide swiftly past her because she connected them
+with those days that stood like memorials in her mind—before or after
+Olga’s death, when she was together with Olga or separated from her.
+
+The moment when her life really began—with hundreds of roaring voices,
+with a full, singing, swinging motif that was never again to be mute,
+but would sound now in the major, now in the minor, now from all the
+violins and celli, now from a single complaining oboe, in a thousand
+intricacies, a thousand nuances, until the closing chord—that moment was
+when Olga Radó opened the door at Consul Moebius’, and walked into the
+room.
+
+There was nothing to be said, on the whole, against the Moebiuses. It
+was an acquaintance that Aunt Emily herself had cultivated. There were
+two daughters, Fannie and Emmie, both younger than Myra, both reddish
+blondes, very precise about their clothes and hair, and both so
+marvellously insignificant that after watching them for weeks, it was
+impossible to tell whether they really were pretty or homely.
+
+The degree of their relationship with Olga Radó is no longer possible to
+ascertain. When she first appeared and everybody was raving about her,
+it was always—“Our cousin.” Later every recollection of that
+relationship was completely effaced from the Moebius’ mind.
+
+Olga herself had never made much use of this “relationship” with Consul
+Moebius, in good days or in bad. She would never have visited the house
+had she not been begged three separate times.
+
+Myra, the Moebius girls and Erika Hanneman formed a little circle. They
+met once a week and did needlework or read French plays, taking
+different parts. It bored Myra to tears, she never listened when the
+others read and always managed to miss her cue.
+
+One such Wednesday afternoon in April, the four girls were again sitting
+on their white-lacquered chairs in the elegant young ladies’ room when
+the door opened, and Olga Radó entered.
+
+She must accidentally have left another door open behind, too, for with
+Olga a breath of air as fresh as a puff of wind swept through the room.
+The window, which was ajar, flew open, the white mull curtains blew out
+and fluttered, the pages of the books rustled, the flies buzzed up
+around the light, while some hand in the sky tore a tatter of cloud from
+the face of the sun: a dazzling brightness and a cool breeze filled the
+room to its darkest corner.
+
+Then the door closed with a loud bang, the window creaked to, the
+curtains fell back into the room like sacks, and a new cloud blotted out
+the sun. But none of these things did Myra Rudloff perceive, for she
+could do nothing but gaze at Olga Radó, could not take her eyes or her
+mind from her—not for a long, long time.
+
+Olga was very tall and very slender. Her face was beautiful and boldly
+chiselled. Her smooth, rich, dark hair exposed much of her high and
+admirably modelled forehead. Her thin black brows drew together at the
+top of her nose, which gave her sharp, metallic-gray eyes an almost
+threatening expression. Her speech was crisp and hard. But her voice had
+a deep, soft, cello quality. It made a striking contrast.
+
+There was something in her manner of dressing which pleased Myra without
+her being able to define it. One could not dispose of it with a word
+like “tasteful” or “elegant” or “smart.” Myra felt dimly—“That is how I
+should like to dress.”
+
+Myra felt her throat go dry and her heart throb wildly when her turn
+came to read. She had never been so nervous in school no matter how
+unprepared she had come. Every word seemed a snare to her. She would
+mispronounce everything and make a fool of herself, irrevocably. It was
+really a crime to know so little French. She would go to her father
+tomorrow and ask him to let her take French lessons. He would be
+overjoyed to have her come to him with such a request.
+
+She was relieved when she had stammered her few lines. Then came Erika’s
+turn, and then Fannie again, with all the pathos at her command.
+
+When they were all standing again, putting on their hats in front of the
+mirror, Myra noticed with an inexplicable joy that she was almost as
+tall as Olga Radó, much taller than the three fair, plump misses.
+
+In a trio they descended the stairs and walked part of the way together.
+Erika Hanneman did most of the talking.
+
+From time to time, Olga Radó said, “Isn’t it?—No!—Indeed—Oh!—No?”
+
+Myra was silent.
+
+At last Erika Hanneman said good-bye and turned to the left.
+
+Olga and Myra walked briskly side by side in silence for a while. Myra
+should long ago have turned off if she wanted to take the shortest way
+home. She observed with some concern that she kept right on going, but
+she was much too happy to stop now that Erika Hanneman had finally left
+them: the air seemed to have become purer and one could stride along
+more freely. It was a joy to keep up with this lovely, regular pace, and
+she comforted herself with the thought that nobody knew where she lived
+anyhow, and that she had just as much right on the street as anybody
+else.
+
+Myra glanced at every house with a certain anxiety: was it at this one
+or the next that Olga Radó would stop with a hasty good-bye, and the
+heavy door close behind her, leaving the street barren and lonely?
+
+But at last they had reached a house in front of which Olga Radó
+suddenly halted.
+
+“My home,” she said, “if you can call a boarding-house home. But after
+all, what can you call home? Are you familiar with the Pension Flesch?”
+
+“I don’t know any boarding-houses.”
+
+“Lucky girl! You live with your parents?”
+
+“With my father.”
+
+“Oh, the house is quite nice. I have lived in worse. Drop in once in a
+while and have a look at my cubbyhole!”
+
+“I’d love to.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+That “love to” was no mere manner of speaking. For the next few days and
+nights Myra pondered how she should contrive to accept this invitation
+and visit Olga Radó.
+
+Once she actually started out. Then she returned because she thought it
+better to announce her call by telephone. But then again, it did not
+seem proper to disturb Olga by a telephone call. She would rather write.
+But that gave the matter such importance and formality, deprived it of
+all its chance, its accidental character. And then if she received a
+polite refusal, all possibility would be gone of making a further
+attempt. But if she simply went up and did not find Olga at home, she
+could leave her card with a few words—and wait for a reply.
+
+She went, went as far as the house, but again she did not go in. She
+walked up and down the street and stood for a long time, lost in
+thought, in front of a few utterly uninviting shopwindows. It might well
+happen that Olga Radó would leave the house at this time, or better yet,
+might be returning home and would ask Myra to come in with her.
+
+In addition, Myra cultivated her relations with the Moebius girls with a
+touching zeal. She invited them to her house as often as Aunt Emily
+permitted, she went to see them as often as she was asked. And she found
+occasion to phone them a hundred times in order to make various
+arrangements. She borrowed books that had to be fetched and returned,
+and withal made such lavish efforts to be amiable that the consul’s wife
+was quite charmed with her, and was never weary of impressing on Aunt
+Emily how much Myra was changing for the better. To which Aunt Emily
+commonly replied by a silent, all but offended shrug of her shoulders.
+
+This went on for weeks. But Myra did not lose patience. It was enough
+for her to hear from time to time a remark let fall—“as Olga always
+says” or “Olga likes that so much.” It was enough, in fact almost too
+much, to hear Fannie say, “Olga was up for a moment last night, I
+thought she looked very bad!” Or to have Emmie, who at this time was
+conceiving something like a mild passion for Myra, observe, “Myra has
+such remarkably beautiful hands, almost as beautiful as Olga’s....”
+
+Ah, it was even enough to hold the little black dog on her lap and laugh
+and call it “Sophonisba,” a pet name Olga had given it.
+
+All this afforded hope and suspense for days. It was at this time, that
+Myra began to find life beautiful again.
+
+She did not know why.
+
+
+
+
+                                  III
+
+
+One evening—the girls were again sitting together in the
+twilight—because they could chat better that way than in the glaring
+lamp light, there came a shrill ring of the bell, and a few moments
+later those deep, vibrant tones that sent a thrill of terror into Myra’s
+very heart sounding from the next room.
+
+She knew that voice perfectly, but she was afraid she might be mistaken.
+She wanted to ask, “Isn’t that Olga?” but was afraid of receiving the
+answer “No.” And more than all else, she was afraid that that
+conversation in the next room might stop, that the door might open, and
+she would hear too late, “Olga just dropped in for a moment.”
+
+But the voices did not stop. They grew louder, drew nearer, the door was
+thrown wide open of a sudden, and in the frame stood the tall apparition
+of Olga Radó, in bold relief against the yellow light flooding the next
+room, like a silhouette on a golden background.
+
+“Do you want to have tea with me tomorrow, children?” she called into
+the dark room. “Somebody has just sent me some Kugler’s confections.”
+
+The Moebius girls shouted for joy.
+
+Emmie pushed forward a chair and wanted Olga to sit down, but she
+declined and did not take her hand from the door-knob.
+
+“No, no, children, I haven’t a moment’s time. But be there promptly
+tomorrow, at four, or half past at the latest, I have to go to the opera
+in the evening.”
+
+Myra did not move. When the door opened she had uttered a semi-audible
+“Good evening.” Now it seemed obtrusive to call attention to herself.
+Perhaps, Olga had not even seen her in her dark corner. Perhaps, too,
+she did not want to see her. It would have been understandable. But
+something hurt her at the thought.
+
+“Won’t you come, too, Miss Rudloff? If you have nothing better in the
+offing. You are heartily welcome.”
+
+“I should love to,” said Myra, and went pale with pleasure.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Olga received her guests with what appeared to be cordial and genuine
+pleasure. It seemed inconceivable to Myra that this woman should not
+wrap herself in cold hauteur as in a coat of mail.
+
+The girls could not restrain their amusement at the ingenious darkness.
+
+“Yes,” said Olga, “I wanted to present my cubbyhole in the best light.
+And the best light is the least light possible.”
+
+Myra was urged to sit in a deep easy-chair.
+
+“Yes, you must make yourself at home with us. After all you are our
+guest of honor, you are the oldest! You are probably still proud of the
+fact, but when you are as old as I am, it ceases to be a compliment.”
+
+In all her life Myra had never felt as much at home as in the
+easy-chair.
+
+In front of her, Olga was crouched on a low taboret. The inevitable
+cigarette was already between her fingers and she clamped it in her
+teeth whenever she needed her hands free to pour tea or pass the cake.
+
+When a lull occurred in the conversation, she brought out a box of
+photographs she had taken on various trips, or a book with Dulac
+illustrations, or a magazine with pictures of the latest screen stars.
+
+Again Myra was conscious of a feeling of pain. It was all she could do
+to answer yes or no to the conversation. “She is making such a dreadful
+effort to entertain us,” she thought. “But in reality, we’re a bore and
+a burden to her. As soon as the door has closed behind us, she’ll draw a
+long breath and say, ‘Thank God!’ I can hardly blame her. But why did
+she ever invite us?”
+
+She had the greatest desire to go, simply to free Olga Radó from this
+visitation. At the same time, she felt that if she tried to break away
+with some excuse or other, and they questioned her and pleaded with her,
+and all their attention was focussed on her, she would be unable to keep
+back the tears which were even now threatening and smarting.
+
+She was almost glad, and yet deeply unhappy, when Olga suddenly glanced
+at her watch and said, “I’ll have to throw you out, children, sorry as
+it makes me. I have to dress quickly as possible—the time passed so
+dreadfully fast.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Myra spent a whole week in aimless promenades, practised the piano at
+home and studied French, and when she had practised and studied for half
+an hour, would throw herself on the divan and stare at the scrap of blue
+sky netted with silvery telephone wires which she could see from where
+she lay. Then her thoughts would fly hither and yon—how glorious it
+would be to understand all the languages in the world, or to master some
+instrument perfectly, or to have a wonderful voice, or to be ravishingly
+beautiful. But since one never could attain to any of those things,
+perhaps it would be pleasantest to be dead.
+
+Then there would come pressing duties which compelled her to go down
+Motz Street. And since one had to pass _the_ house, it was natural that
+one should walk a little slower, gaze up at the windows and peer down
+the street.
+
+And since one was in town and wanted to go home, one might just as well
+go down Motz as Kleist Street. And since one went out to get a little
+fresh air, it was the most natural thing in the world that one should
+sit down on a bench on Victoria Louisa Square and watch the children
+playing.
+
+Every day Myra stood in front of a shop-window containing gloves,
+ribbons and laces, and stared in profound thought at the display—because
+at the back was a mirror, and in this mirror she could watch the door of
+the house opposite.
+
+Every time the door opened, Myra started.
+
+Once when Olga Radó emerged from that door, Myra scarcely recognized
+her. Olga wore a loose cloak, both hands were thrust in her pockets and
+she had no hat. She ran, rather than walked, two houses farther down to
+the mail-box, and dropped a letter.
+
+Myra hurried across the street to intercept her on her return. Her heart
+was throbbing so that she had to gasp for breath. With the extreme speed
+of thought she decided on a hundred different courses and instantly
+rejected them again. She would say something to Olga. She would pass her
+with a silent greeting. But suppose she were not recognized! She had
+better say something to her. But what?
+
+While she was still crossing the street, Olga had seen her and waved her
+hand.
+
+“Hello, Myra! Were you going to call on me?”
+
+“Not exactly,” said Myra paling with excitement. Perhaps this was a
+further stupidity, perhaps she should have said yes.
+
+“Yes, exactly.” Olga hooked her hand in Myra’s arm. “Come up for an
+hour. Or shall you be neglecting something? No? Well, then, fine! Wait,
+I must see my friend at the corner and buy me some cigarettes. Will you
+come, too?”
+
+Never in all her life had Myra seen such a charming tobacco shop as this
+at the corner. Never had any individual pleased her so much at first
+sight as this white-haired, simpering little man, with the withered,
+trembling hands, from whom Olga Radó bought her cigarettes.
+
+Olga sat at the broad diplomat’s desk of black stained oak, her legs
+crossed in a Luther chair, leaning somewhat forward, both elbows resting
+on the high arms.
+
+Myra sat facing her in the easy-chair. She felt a little strained as at
+an examination. Something went tense deep within her, so that she
+gritted her teeth and said to herself, “I will pass this test, I will
+pass it.”
+
+For a while all went well. They talked of the Moebius girls and of Erika
+Hanneman and Olga’s aunt, the consul’s wife. And Myra told about her
+life at home, about Aunt Emily and the beautiful days of her childhood.
+
+Suddenly Olga said, “Tell me frankly, how do you come to be friends with
+my so-called cousins?”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Myra, “Aunt Emily....”
+
+“I don’t mean to say anything against them,” said Olga quickly, “they
+are as good as gold. But aren’t you bored to death in this perpetual
+round?”
+
+“Yes,” Myra replied, “but I’m always bored, anyway.”
+
+“Why, how dreadful!” said Olga really shocked. “I’d rather be dead than
+be bored. Don’t you really know anybody but Fannie and Emmie and Aunt
+Emily?”
+
+“No,” Myra hesitated. “It’s probably my own fault. I’ve never had a
+friend. But then I’ve never wanted one.”
+
+“It is not so easy,” Olga reflected. “Usually we miss our best friends
+by a century or two. We know some by reading about them or seeing their
+pictures. But that is all, of those who will be born after us, we know
+nothing. That is why I so envy people who create. They can greet those
+who come after us. They can keep themselves alive in pictures, words or
+deeds. Yes, in deeds, too. It is like a cry. Thus I am, thus I was, love
+me! And if in their own lifetimes they have never found anyone—perhaps
+in a hundred years, or maybe two hundred, somebody will be born who will
+love them as they desired to be loved. Who will understand them as they
+desired to be understood. We poor creatures—once we’re dead, we most
+certainly will never be loved again. Not for as long as ten years after,
+ah, not even for ten months. Sometimes I would like....”
+
+Her eyes were very dark and menacing under her furrowed brows.
+
+She broke off and began again in another one. “Do you know, there are a
+great many very congenial people of the Renaissance. We should have
+lived four or five centuries sooner. I should certainly have been
+friends with Margherita Sforza. I have just read a wonderful story about
+how she held her brother’s possessions when Julius Caesar was sent
+against them.”
+
+Myra felt a tempest in her brain which was not unlike vertigo.
+Renaissance—that was a familiar idea. Her mind made some kind of hazy
+connection with the name Sforza.
+
+But—“Julius Caesar,” she muttered to herself, disconcerted.
+
+Olga laughed. “No, no, not the great one! Julius Caesar of Capua. Some
+stupid, little princeling or other. You don’t need to know him.”
+
+“Ah,” Myra sighed with sincere feeling, “there’s so much that I don’t
+know, that I have to learn.”
+
+“Oh, well, it won’t be so dreadful,” said Olga. “You know Queen Jeanne,
+don’t you?”
+
+“Which one?” asked Myra quite at sea. “I know the Queen of Navarre’s
+stories....”
+
+“But not herself, I trust,” said Olga in fun. “Besides, she was a
+Margueritte. But you don’t know the Sforza?” She asked it as tenderly,
+as encouragingly, as if she were talking to a child whom she did not
+wish to hurt.
+
+“I don’t know ... no ... and yet....”
+
+“Well, what _do_ you know about her?”
+
+“Nothing,” said Myra disconcerted. “Only the picture by Rubens—the
+little girl with the liverwurst....”
+
+Olga listened for a moment with her eyebrows lifted as if she were
+recollecting. Then she laughed loudly and merrily, more merrily than
+Myra had ever heard her laugh. But, strangely enough, her amusement did
+not wound Myra, although she was surprised at this failure on her part
+to be hurt. It was so nice, to see Olga Radó laugh so heartily. Even if
+one’s self was being laughed at.
+
+“You poor child!” cried Olga still laughing. “What must your mind look
+like! Ah, I should like to introduce some order there for a change!”
+
+“Do,” said Myra fervently. “Please, please, do!”
+
+For a moment Olga’s face grew serious and thoughtful.
+
+“No, no,” said Myra, immediately terrified, “that’s just impertinence on
+my part. After all, you’re not our governess!”
+
+“Child!” said Olga, leaning forward suddenly and laying her hand on
+Myra’s. “Are you really so sensitive? But you have no reason to be. Do
+you want to learn to read with me? There is nothing more I can do for
+you. But come up and study, won’t you? Come up here to me as often as
+you wish until you are bored.”
+
+“I never will be!” said Myra as if she were taking a sacred oath.
+
+“But you know, before we can really dig into anything, you will have to
+make a general survey. First you’ll have to work your way through a
+history of the world. Shall I give you Schlosser? Here are eighteen
+volumes. One volume after the other. Yes, my child, Heaven won’t help
+you this time! If you can’t do more, at least you can read a round
+hundred pages a day, that’s all. And when you’re finished, every three
+or four days you’ll come up and exchange your book for another and we’ll
+have tea and chat a little. Like the idea? Shall we make it a go?”
+
+That is the way it began.
+
+And that is the way it went along for quite a while.
+
+With passionate zeal Myra read the books that Olga Radó lent her. And
+when she had put down the book, her face ablaze, it would seem to her as
+if Olga sat in front of her, holding a long conversation with her. On
+every page there was something, something horrible or beautiful,
+something strange or incomprehensible, something which she must tell
+Olga or question her about.
+
+And sometimes she really did have these conversations, sometimes she did
+say what she had it in mind to say, what she had resolved to tell
+Olga—but very seldom.
+
+It was a peculiarly surprising and delightful fact, of which Myra was
+probably always conscious, but which was not clear to her until much,
+much later—one could not steer a conversation with Olga Radó.
+
+So strong were her moods that they created an atmosphere in a room so
+that it was impossible to partake of any other feeling than hers. And
+whoever was not sensitive to this, whoever did invoke another mood than
+that with which wood and glass and air and silk seemed softly to
+vibrate, called forth a screaming dissonance.
+
+Myra felt this sometimes, later on, when strangers entered the room. She
+herself never called forth, not even at the very beginning, the
+slightest discord, because she was quiet, because she effaced herself in
+order, half unconsciously, and yet almost anxiously, to intercept every
+vibration that quivered in the air.
+
+It was half unconscious only at first, that is. She felt herself so
+abysmally small and stupid that she hardly dared have an idea of her own
+in Olga’s presence. Later, when her healthy nerves had been stretched
+fine and thin to the breaking-point, she mastered the art consciously.
+She used to say sometimes, in fun, “You must have gone down the street
+in a very bad humor today. The houses are still making faces at you
+behind your back!”
+
+It was the third or fourth time that Myra had been up. Olga was lying on
+the divan, smoking so incessantly that the blue clouds had difficulty in
+escaping out the window.
+
+Myra sat in her easy-chair, reading Jean Paul aloud to her. “Others,
+too, at least the reader and myself, would have been affected by this
+transparent night with which April was closing, the vast stillness on
+which the drum-taps beat, that longing for one’s beloved with which the
+morrow again restores a barren heart and a shattered life remove;—these
+things would have filled us both with a gentle tremulousness and
+dreams....”
+
+“Please stop!” said Olga, pressing her hand to her temples. “Don’t be
+angry, but I can’t stand that today. Be a good girl, up there you’ll
+find Walt Whitman—on the top shelf—more to the right. But never mind,
+don’t bother. Go to my dressing-table, you’ll find a silver brush there.
+No, the one with the handle. Let me have it, will you?”
+
+Obediently, Myra fetched the brush.
+
+Olga took it from her without rising and beat a mighty tattoo against
+the wall with the back; after a short pause, a second and a third.
+
+Myra laughed. “Must you have the brush for that?”
+
+“Yes,” said Olga. “It’s my telegraph instrument. After long years of
+experience, proved the best. What else can I use? The ink-well is no
+good. A book makes no noise, and besides, I don’t like to treat it
+so....”
+
+Meanwhile there came a knock on the door.
+
+“Come in, come in, come in,” called Olga.
+
+The door was partly opened and a man’s blond head peered in.
+
+“Ah, a caller?” said a high, thin, husky, and yet not unpleasant, voice.
+
+“Come in, Peterkin,” said Olga, “it’s only Myra.”
+
+Her words sent a wonderful feeling of happiness through Myra. They gave
+her a certain justification, a sense of being at home in this room,
+where simply to be tolerated was a pride and joy.
+
+The little man, who insinuated his delicate and deformed body through
+the door, knew her, was aware that it was she who was “just Myra”—that
+is to say, that she was not a mere caller, not a stranger, but somebody
+who belonged there, who would not be in the way. One was as good as
+alone.
+
+All Myra’s sympathy darted out to the young man. Perhaps, if he had been
+a more commanding, more handsome youth, she would have experienced some
+feeling of jealousy toward him. But he was anything but handsome, in
+spite of his gentle blue eyes and his exquisitely manicured hands.
+
+Myra loved him from the very first, in the same way she had loved the
+tobacconist at the corner, with an almost real affection.
+
+This first meeting was the beginning of a faithful friendship that was
+to last for years.
+
+Otto Peterkin was, on the whole, not inclined to overestimate himself or
+the fascinations which his person was likely to exert—and yet, may there
+not have been moments during which he thought Myra’s feeling for him to
+be of a different quality than her love for the little tobacconist?
+
+“Peterkin,” said Olga, “fetch your fiddle and play us something.”
+
+“All right, what?” said Peterkin.
+
+“Something nice. Nothing is too good for this little girl.”
+
+Peterkin played. Played what they both loved best, Olga and he, and
+which he would not, could not have played, had there been someone
+listening for whom it was “too good.”
+
+Myra sat perfectly still. It seemed to her as if the notes bore her
+onward like a gently flooding stream, on and on, everything was left
+behind, the drab and dirty city, the crowds of carping, clawing
+people—all were outdistanced, grew smaller, vanished in the haze. But
+the air was ever clearer, ever purer, the water ever deeper, the shores
+more lovely, more free. An island appeared, the low-hanging branches of
+its flowering trees were lapped by the lifting waves.
+
+That day, for the first time, Myra came home late for supper. The long,
+agitated and irate lecture with which Aunt Emily received her, made her
+feel as if someone had thrown dirty water on her. She shuddered with
+loathing, but she felt no pain.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+
+On Olga Radó’s writing-table was a beautiful box of heavy, angular
+crystal with a smooth silver cover. It was almost always empty, for the
+cigarettes were smoked so fast that it was almost no use to take them
+out of the original package.
+
+One evening, Olga again took the last of the twenty-five from her pack.
+
+“Oh, dear, what a shame! Myra do look on the desk. Of course, there
+isn’t one there either! What an imbecile I am!”
+
+“I’ll run down quickly and get you some.”
+
+“No, don’t, I won’t have you running downstairs for that. Wait, give me
+my case, there must be a few left in it.”
+
+Olga was lying as usual on the divan, and she now sat up, tugging keys,
+handkerchiefs and letters from her pocket; finally she opened the case.
+
+“Hurrah! By a wise economy we can hold out till tomorrow! Have one?” She
+proffered the open case.
+
+“No,” said Myra, “I’ll be very nice and decline, otherwise they won’t
+last till morning.”
+
+“Angel!” said Olga, snapping the clasp. “My one consolation is that you
+don’t care much anyhow.”
+
+“May I look at the case?” asked Myra.
+
+“There it is, my angel.” Olga handed it to her. “It’s beautiful, isn’t
+it?”
+
+Myra turned the smooth, reflecting gold with careful hands. “Incredibly
+beautiful. I’m simply wild about that broad low design. But why the
+crab? Is it a heraldic beast?”
+
+“My coat of arms!” said Olga, laughing. “Our family device. It signifies
+that ‘like the crab we would go backward.’”
+
+“It’s not a crab,” said Myra, hesitantly, blushing.
+
+“No? Who told you so? But in any case, it is unfortunately, not a very
+useful or agreeable creature. It’s a scorpion.”
+
+“Ooh!” said Myra. “Why such a monster? From some special preference?”
+
+“Yes,” said Olga. “Someone had this case made for me because I once said
+that the scorpion is the most decent creature on earth. It is my
+favorite animal.”
+
+“You’re not serious?” cried Myra, shocked.
+
+“Oh, but I am. Yes, I am quite serious—about the scorpion. Do you know
+that it is the only animal in the world that commits suicide? It does
+not let itself be slowly tortured to death by human curiosity and
+cruelty. It struggles like a mad thing, and when it knows that it is no
+longer possible to save itself, it kills itself. Isn’t that wonderful?”
+
+Olga had sat up. She was gazing at Myra out of great, dark eyes. Her
+beautiful pale features were set in a strangely anguished, yet heroic,
+expression.
+
+Myra was shocked. “And you?” she said, clasping Olga’s hand with an
+involuntary movement. “Is that why you took it for your device?”
+
+Olga smiled, a kindly, gentle smile.
+
+“Little stupid,” she said, “that has another significance altogether. I
+must be a scorpion because I have a poison sting. Because my wits must
+be ‘like scorpion stings.’ Someone who loved me once declared it was so.
+And declared, too, that if I were driven to an extremity, I would turn
+my sting against myself and kill myself. I do not know if it is true or
+not. I get no particular pleasure out of thinking about myself. But that
+is how this person saw me. And so he had this case made for me. See!”
+She opened it. The little rubies of which the scorpion was formed were
+set _à jour_: the device was visible on the inside also. And right under
+it was engraved her name—Olga Radó.
+
+Myra scolded herself furiously, but she could not help it—her heart was
+filled to bursting with furious jealousy of this stranger who loved Olga
+Radó and gave her gold cigarette cases.
+
+“A beautiful hand-writing,” she said distractedly.
+
+“It isn’t mine,” said Olga. Slowly she closed the case and with a gentle
+gesture laid its smooth surface against her cheek.
+
+“It is so beautiful. I love it so. And I am so glad that I _can_ love
+it. It was a parting gift. And it was a very beautiful parting.”
+
+Myra was on fire with a torment of aversion.
+
+“A beautiful parting!” she said bitterly. “Are there such things?”
+
+Olga sat up abruptly. “Yes, Myra,” she said with real fervor. “And there
+should be more, many more. It is a misfortune that people do not
+understand how to part from one another. Learn it, Myra, learn it in
+time.”
+
+“No,” said Myra obdurately, “I’ll probably never learn. Let people to
+whom love is only a game make a game of parting.”
+
+“Myra,” said Olga earnestly, “you are a child! Do you think that it is
+any proof of a great love, for me to cling to someone till he is sick
+and tired of me? I would rather die a thousand deaths than become a
+burden to someone whom I love. It is an art to begin, though I believe
+that any individual can conquer any other individual, and the beginning
+will always be beautiful. But the end will always be a horrible, bitter,
+hateful torture. It is a great art, indeed, to know how to end. At the
+right time. And in the right way. Learn, Myra, learn it in time.”
+
+Their silence lasted so terribly long. Yes, she must rise now and go.
+But it seemed to her as if the chair were holding her tight, or the gray
+wall above it on which her eyes were fastened. She felt that the moment
+she rose, the tears would start from her eyes. That must never be. She
+strove to set her mind on something else, on something quite remote. She
+wanted to go to the theatre next week. She had been very happy at the
+prospect. But actually, the nicest part of going to the theatre or a
+concert was to sit here afterwards and discuss what she had seen and
+heard. That could no longer be. Not next week. Never again, perhaps.
+
+The silence in the room took away her breath. If only Olga would say
+something. Anything. Scold her, humiliate her. It was so cruel of her
+simply to say nothing.
+
+Myra made an attempt to get up. Her movement was imperceptible, but she
+felt it in every muscle. At the same instant, those painfully retaining
+lids could no longer hold back the constantly welling tears; they
+quivered, were closed, and the heavy drops oozed forth.
+
+Myra was terribly ashamed of herself. Something inside her made itself
+small. She would have been so glad to make her exterior body small in
+the same way, to bend down, to hide her face. But she did not dare move.
+She did not want to attract attention by the slightest movement. Perhaps
+Olga’s thoughts were far away and she had not even noticed her.
+
+The tears splashed on her hand. She did not dare dry them.
+
+Suddenly she shrank together with a pang. She heard the divan creak and
+the soft rustling of a dress. Olga was on her feet. She heard an
+infinitely gentle, soft voice at her side. “Myra, child, what on earth
+are you crying about?”
+
+Myra did not look up, but sank her head still lower. Then Olga was
+kneeling beside her with a sudden movement, as one kneels beside a
+crying child and tries to peer up into its face.
+
+“What are you crying about?”
+
+Myra saw the beautiful face before her through a blur of welling water.
+She smiled.
+
+“I don’t know,” she said.
+
+She looked at the slender white hand that lay on her knee, covering her
+own folded hands. She bent slowly over this hand, and pressed her lips,
+her hot, tear-wet cheeks against it.
+
+“Child!” said Olga almost impatiently, trying with her other hand to
+raise Myra’s forehead. “If only I knew what it is you are crying about!”
+
+Myra was frightened by her tone. She raised her head and again stared at
+the gray wall on the far side of the court-yard.
+
+Olga had risen. Her hand still lay on Myra’s head. Its cool smooth palm
+pressed firmly, almost heavily, upon her hair and brow. Myra felt this
+pressure as something infinitely beneficent. Felt as if she would fly
+asunder, were that forceful hand to be removed.
+
+“I don’t know myself,” she said softly. “But I wish I had been dead a
+hundred years. Perhaps you would love me, too, then.”
+
+With a sudden gesture, Olga Radó clasped Myra’s head to her shoulder and
+pressed her lips hard, almost painfully, against her forehead.
+
+“And what now?” she asked curtly. There was a strange vibrant ring in
+her deep voice as if she suppressed some resentment only by an effort.
+
+In her temples, in her finger-tips, Myra felt the furious hammering of a
+pulse. But she did not know whose heart it was throbbing.
+
+She had a feeling as if it were now her duty to do something infinitely
+great. It seemed to her as if Olga Radó must now rise before her in
+super-human greatness and demand some heroic deed of her.
+
+Myra felt a holy determination to jump out a window at the slightest
+word, or to pierce her breast with a dagger and to proffer her
+palpitating heart in her own two hands.
+
+But Olga Radó made no such demands. She suddenly released Myra and went
+to the window. She laid her fingers on the lock and her forehead against
+the pane. And thus, without looking at Myra, without even turning her
+head, she said after a pause, in a strangely quiet, even matter-of-fact
+tone, “Go home, child!”
+
+“Why?” asked Myra frightened. She got up, her legs trembling under her.
+That oppressive feeling of something mysterious, something gruesome, lay
+like a heavy weight on her breast. Why was she being sent away? What had
+she done?
+
+She wanted some kind of explanation. She wanted to place her hands on
+Olga’s shoulders, to turn her around by force and search her face for an
+answer. “I have a right to do so,” she thought with mounting anger. “I
+certainly have a right.”
+
+But as she made her first step toward the window, Olga faced about
+violently. Crossing her arms on her breast, she clasped her elbows with
+her spread fingers. In her white face, her eyes flashed deep, dark and
+threatening.
+
+“You are to go home,” she said with a composure so forced that she
+seemed to be controlling a simply boundless rage. “Can’t you hear? Am I
+no longer mistress in my own apartment? Take your hat and go. Go, go,
+go, go!”
+
+The anger that had been blazing up in Myra was quenched. Nothing was
+left save fear, and a deep, deep sadness.
+
+Something seemed to be driving her to Olga as if she were scourged. She
+wanted to fall on the floor before her, she wanted to clasp her knees,
+she wanted to beseech her.
+
+“Weep, scream, beat me, but don’t use this kind of force against me.
+Tell me what is the matter. I will die for you, but don’t send me away,
+because you are suffering.” She stood without moving.
+
+“Go, go, go!” said Olga.
+
+Myra Rudloff picked up her hat and went. She strove to walk erect and in
+a straight line. She staggered a little as the lock snapped behind her,
+and she had to support herself against the wall. She leaned her whole
+weight against the balustrade because the stairs spun around beneath her
+like a raging whirlpool.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a few days Myra lived in a state of dull torment. Through the haze
+of awakening she would remember that today she must not take the road to
+Motz Street. Not today, not tomorrow; perhaps nevermore. She was
+outlawed, outcast, banned from all the joys of life.
+
+Long, drab and barren, the day stretched out before her. A heaviness
+like lead lay upon her limbs. When the telephone rang, she would start
+up with her heart furiously throbbing, as if out of a profound lethargy.
+But it never rang for her.
+
+There was nasty weather during those days, cold and rainy. But one
+Sunday night the wind swept the sky clean of clouds and dried the
+streets. In the morning, a blue summer sky shone over the city. The
+sun’s rays, dancing on one corner of her mirror, awakened Myra.
+
+She felt as liberated on awakening, as filled with the unconquerable
+force of life, as if at one stroke all her troubles had vanished, all
+her heavy burden lightened. She felt able to resume the struggle with
+all its impediments. Indeed, there no longer seemed to be any
+impediments.
+
+Today she would return the books she had borrowed from Olga Radó.
+
+And then she would call her to account, would ask her quite frankly and
+cheerfully what was really the matter, whether it was Olga’s intention
+to put her out again. If so, she might do it with an easy mind.
+
+But she would not do so. It had been a mood, a caprice—but no deep-going
+rift, no conflict between them.
+
+And if she really had committed some offense in Olga’s eyes, she would
+like some explanation, and then would like—ah, yes, for her own
+sake—would like to beg forgiveness.
+
+Myra whistled and hummed to herself while she dressed and brushed her
+hair. When she rang, her stupid heart throbbed so that she could not
+breathe. That came from running upstairs too fast.
+
+The maid was surprised. “Miss Radó is travelling,” she said hesitantly.
+“Didn’t you know?”
+
+For the first few moments the shame of not knowing was greater in Myra
+than fear. She felt that she was exposed to the maid in the most absurd
+way.
+
+“But, but ...” she said, “I just wanted to leave these books in her
+room. But I can just as well give them to you. Be so good, as to take
+them, Erna. Then I won’t even have to go up. I am in a hurry. I will see
+you again.”
+
+She bounded down the first stairs so that the girl should hear her
+haste. Not until the door had closed behind her, did she walk more
+slowly.
+
+Olga was gone. Without saying a word to her, without once calling her
+up, or dropping her a line, without as much as leaving a message for her
+with the maid.
+
+She was gone. Without saying where. Without saying for how long.
+
+Myra bowed her head very low on her breast and descended quite slowly,
+step by step.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few days later, Myra heard the telephone ring, and the maid trotting
+at a run through the long hall. Myra opened her door.
+
+“For me, Hedwig?”
+
+“Yes. A gentleman wishes to speak to you. A Mr. Petersen or Peterkin, I
+didn’t quite catch it.”
+
+On the girl’s round features were emblazoned unconcealed admiration.
+This was the first time that a man’s voice had asked to speak with her.
+
+“Peterkin!” Myra shouted excitedly into the mouthpiece without paying
+the slightest heed to the fact that Aunt Emily was sitting in the next
+room. “Yes, this is Myra. What’s the matter? Nothing has happened, has
+it?”
+
+“No, no, thank heaven! I am simply commanded to give you ‘her dearest
+regards’: I received a card today.”
+
+“From where? From whom?” She did not need to ask.
+
+“From Kissingen. I had to look up your address in the directory. I did
+not know your telephone number, nor even the name of the street. I
+wasn’t even sure of your name.”
+
+“Good Lord, you poor fellow. Can’t I see you, or have you no time for
+me?”
+
+“Of course, I have. I’d be glad to....”
+
+“Shall we go walking for an hour? Will you? Please do, please! Today, if
+you can! Right away? Really? Wonderful! And you’ll bring the card with
+you!”
+
+They met. After a two word greeting, Myra asked, “Did you bring the
+card? Please, show it to me. Please!”
+
+Beside the address there was written in a firm, laboriously condensed
+hand:
+
+“Please, Peterkin, do me a favor and return the books to the Royal
+Library. One is on my desk, two are on the shelf, to the left of the
+window in the case farthest to the right. And take my plant to your
+room, the maids will forget it and I don’t want it to die.”
+
+On the other side was written across the sky that capped the landscape:
+
+“Please ring the little girl and greet her for me. You’ll have to look
+up her number in the book. Tell her not to be angry with me. All the
+best to all of you. O. R.”
+
+Hundreds and thousands of such picture post-cards had passed through
+Myra’s hands in the course of her life, but this was the first time the
+thought had occurred to her: “What a wonderful and beautiful invention
+whereby one can send a picture of the place where one is staying. So
+that is how it looks where Olga is now. She sees these houses every day,
+goes walking under these trees, these mountains greet her every morning
+and every evening—truly a wonderful and beautiful invention!”
+
+She would gladly have kept the card, but she did not have the courage to
+ask Peterkin for it.
+
+“It happened so quickly,” she said, “—this trip.” She was reluctant to
+say that she had known and suspected nothing. But she was reluctant,
+too, to ply him with direct questions. Half unconsciously, she spoke in
+phrases that left everything indefinite, but which, to a certain degree,
+sounded him out.
+
+“Yes,” said Peterkin, “rather peculiarly sudden. On Tuesday we were all
+there, why, we were all sitting together. But that night Olga came into
+my room and said, ‘Give me your railway guide.’ And she kept fingering
+it through and asking me, ‘Do you know the Black Forest, is it pretty
+there? What do you think, should I go to the North Sea?’ And so on,
+which is not her way. So undecided, I mean, so perplexed. And Wednesday
+night she was off. Didn’t tell a soul where. At first I had a
+suspicion—a notion, I should say, an idea....” Peterkin hesitated, and a
+faint red overspread his pale features—“that you had gone away
+together.”
+
+Myra did not answer. It never occurred to her for a moment that her
+profound silence might possibly produce a queer impression.
+
+His words had struck her like a bolt of lightning and she was in flames.
+Travel! Travel with Olga! There was something joyfully improbable about
+the idea. For a few seconds, she lived through in imagination all that
+it might have meant, had they decided to do this that Tuesday!
+
+Abruptly, painfully, she returned to her senses: it was a silly,
+unfulfilled dream, one never, never to be fulfilled, perhaps. The
+reality was that she was here—alone—and that Olga was gone. Also alone?
+Or with whom? Nothing in the world gave Myra the right even to ask.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+During those weeks Myra’s sole pleasure was to go walking with Peterkin.
+They made excursions together, lay half the day beside the water, or
+took a row-boat, or drank coffee in some out of the way inn with a
+garden, and talked about books, about strange cities, and distant
+mountains, about beasts and plants, and of people long dead—and about
+Olga.
+
+Sometimes, when they were together they wrote to Olga, sent her picture
+post-cards, or long poems in doggerel, and from time to time they
+received some hasty reply, and once the news that she was planning to
+return in three weeks.
+
+Myra was quiet and happy during this time. The companionship of Peterkin
+did her good. When she was home, she read and studied under his guidance
+and counted the days until Olga’s return. She drew up a long list of
+books which she intended to have read, of things which she intended to
+have accomplished by that time. She wanted to surprise Olga with all the
+knowledge she had acquired in the interval, and labored with a burning
+zeal.
+
+Everything would have gone nicely, if it had not been for Aunt Emily.
+Aunt Emily watched and held her tongue and stored up gall and poison.
+And one day it broke out.
+
+It was after dinner. Myra wanted to leave the table with a curt, “I hope
+you enjoy your meal,” and fetch her hat from her room. Aunt Emily who
+had sat on the defensive throughout dinner, brushed together a pile of
+minute crumbs, on the tablecloth, with her elegant fingers, and at
+Myra’s words, cleared her throat quickly and sharply and said with
+emphasis, “Perhaps you will be so good as to remain seated until I leave
+the table.”
+
+Bored, but patient, Myra sat herself down again. She did not know that
+this was but the prelude to greater things. She thought it was merely
+one of those daily bits of chicanery that wasted at least one’s time and
+energy if they were not taken with the greatest unconcern.
+
+Myra cast a covert glance at the clock. “Now, of course, she’ll sit for
+another five minutes before she gives the sign to rise,” she thought.
+“Very well, I’ll come five minutes late. Peterkin will wait.”
+
+Aunt Emily continued to heap up crumbs and to clear her throat. “Will
+you be so good, Franz,” she began (it would be more precise to say she
+struck up), “will you be so good as to ask your daughter where she
+intends going this afternoon, and with whom? When I ask her, she
+answers, ‘Walking—with an acquaintance,’ or some such bit of wit. So
+please ask her yourself. Perhaps she still retains enough respect to
+tell you the truth, at least.”
+
+Franz Rudloff rolled up his napkin and unrolled it again, thrust it into
+the napkin-ring and pulled it out again while he sat in mortal
+embarrassment.
+
+“You know, my dear Emily,” he said without looking up, “that I have
+turned over my daughter’s education to you because I know that she could
+nowhere be so well brought up as in your excellent hands. Myra owes you
+exactly the same obedience she does me. You are in full possession of
+all the necessary authority....”
+
+“Authority!” said Aunt Emily with a mocking laugh. “What am I supposed
+to do? You can’t spank a twenty-year-old girl or lock her in her room.”
+
+“Not very well,” said Myra quietly, “thank God! But perhaps, I, too, may
+ask one question—would you mind telling me why you need to take such
+measures?”
+
+“Why? In your own interest!” said Aunt Emily in a tone that was meant to
+express flaming indignation.
+
+“Oh?” Myra was still rather amused than excited. “And what is going to
+bring about my total destruction? The fact that I go walking with a
+young man? Good Lord, poor little Peterkin! Did you ever happen to see
+him? I can introduce you to him some time, perhaps that will calm your
+fears!”
+
+“Well, what sort of a man is he then?” asked Franz Rudloff, knitting his
+brows. This was intended to sound stern and forceful. It sounded rather
+timid.
+
+Myra felt a tender pity for her father that was not altogether free of
+contempt.
+
+“Good heavens, papa,” she said, “a fine, intelligent man. But a poor,
+ailing, deformed, little fellow. Hardly the person who could prove very
+dangerous to a young girl’s virtue or reputation.”
+
+“Perhaps not to a normal young girl,” said Aunt Emily, quivering with
+malice. “Unfortunately, I do not know how far one can assume that you
+are normal. Unfortunately, there are plenty of young women who have some
+sick and perverse attraction to all repellent and unhealthy persons.”
+
+Myra pushed back her chair so that it grated sharply on the floor.
+
+“You are absolutely insane,” she said. That was all. Then she walked
+with her firm long stride into the next room, to the telephone, and
+called a number.
+
+“May I speak to Mr. Peterkin? Forgive me, Peterkin, I’ll have to
+disappoint you today. My Aunt will not allow me to go walking with you.
+Yes, I am sorry, too. But there is nothing one can do about it. My Aunt
+thinks it improper. No, no, better not ring me, probably that is
+improper, too. God bless you, and don’t worry about it!”
+
+Without turning, without casting as much as a glance in their direction,
+she went up to her room, and locked and bolted herself in.
+
+Thus her friendly companionship with Peterkin was interrupted for the
+moment.
+
+Franz Rudloff’s quiet sensitive nature suffered severely from the tense
+atmosphere in the house. The meals were eaten in a painful silence,
+every activity in common, a walk, a visit to the theatre seemed
+impossible.
+
+He resolved to negotiate a peace and endeavored to bring his daughter to
+apologize. With this in mind he went, as he seldom did, to her room.
+Myra was poring, her head propped on her hands, over her books. When her
+father entered, she sprang up and received him as she would an honored
+guest. She moved up the most comfortable chair for him and offered him a
+cigarette.
+
+He did not know how he should introduce the subject and felt dreadfully
+embarrassed. Myra endeavored to make the situation easier for him, for
+it pained her to see how he was suffering.
+
+She promised the apology, promised to make conversation at table,
+promised to put on a pleasant face and manner from morn to night.
+
+“I promise to control myself, Father,” she said.
+
+Control! That was not what Franz Rudloff was asking.
+
+“Couldn’t you try,” he said timidly, “to reach some different kind of
+feeling for Aunt Emily in your own heart? She really has such very
+estimable qualities. We could have a much happier family life if you—I
+know it is difficult to conquer one’s feelings—but if at least you _made
+an attempt_ to love her.”
+
+“Love!” echoed Myra. Her face was stony in its repose as she gazed past
+him, out of the window, but her breath came quicker. “I can promise you
+one thing, all my life long I have rejoiced at the thought of one thing,
+have waited for just one thing—the moment when she would die. I have
+prayed every night to God to make her die, soon, soon.”
+
+Franz Rudloff turned quite pale.
+
+“Myra!” he said, his eyes wide.
+
+“I will promise you not to do that any more,” said Myra with a gentle,
+mournful smile. “Besides, it’s too late now anyway. Now I will pray God
+only to let me be twenty-one soon. To make this unhappy year pass
+quickly, quickly. When I am of age, we can always find some way. If she
+makes things too lively for me, I shall leave the house, even if it has
+to be as a nursemaid. If I don’t have to be together with her, she can
+live to a hundred for all I care. But before this, I don’t mind telling
+you, before this there were times when I would gladly have killed her
+with my own two hands.”
+
+A yawning chasm opened before Franz Rudloff. He clutched the arms of his
+chair tightly, so violently and spasmodically was his poor weak heart
+pounding.
+
+He rose and left the room, heavily and slowly, like an old man.
+
+For a moment, Myra felt an impulse to jump up and stop him, to guide him
+back to the easy-chair again. Was there not some possibility of an
+explanation, some means of arriving at an understanding?
+
+“He’s going because he is afraid,” she thought. “He’s going because he
+can no longer breathe the same air that I do, the air that is poisoned
+by the venom of my evil thoughts. He’s asking himself now why he has to
+be so bitterly punished, why he had to give life to a murderess. Who
+knows; he may go directly to Aunt Emily and ask her advice, what to do
+with his abandoned daughter. Perhaps they will consult an alienist
+again. I have expressed an intention to murder my whole family. No, no,
+there’s no point in trying explanations. Father simply does not
+understand me.”
+
+He had gone. She let him go without moving.
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+
+
+Three weeks passed, four weeks, five weeks—nothing was seen nor heard of
+Olga Radó. In desperation, Myra resumed her long neglected friendship
+with the Moebius girls. She endured the torture of a few boring
+afternoons without finding the courage to inquire about Olga. And when
+finally she did ask, no one knew anything about her.
+
+But one afternoon Emmie burst into the room just as Fannie was telling
+Myra the highly exciting story of a letter to her which her mother had
+opened. Myra was not especially clever at such things, but she had
+achieved some sort of ability to say “Yes? Oh! Really?” at suitable
+places, without once understanding what the whole business was about.
+Tossing a couple of little packages onto the table, Emmie cried, “Guess
+whom I saw, girls! Olga!”
+
+Joy and anguish contended in Myra’s breast. So she was here! There was
+the possibility of meeting her, of coming face to face with her quite
+suddenly and unexpectedly—that was her first thought. But her second
+was—“she is back and hasn’t told me. She doesn’t want to see me. She
+went away without telling me, she has returned without telling me, I am
+so irksome to her that she has gone to some trouble to be rid of me.
+What can I do? Oh, what can I do?”
+
+Between the sisters there developed a long conversation about Olga. “She
+takes humors,” said Fannie, “for a while she’ll come and see you every
+three days, and then again you won’t catch a glimpse of her for three
+months.”
+
+“She doesn’t want to meet me,” thought Myra bitterly, “that is why she
+won’t come here.”
+
+“But she’s been travelling all this time,” said Emmie in extenuation.
+
+“Yes? And before that?” asked Fannie. “What about the three months
+before this trip? Did she bother her head about us? I suppose she had no
+time for us then either!”
+
+“But for me,” thought Myra with proud anguish, “oh, for me she had
+time—every day, every day....”
+
+“You make me think of Aunt Sophie,” said Emmie and strove to distort her
+doll’s face to imitate her aunt. “‘This Olga is a very dangerous person.
+She plays with people as though they were puppets. When she is tired of
+them, she throws them to one side. At the same time, she’s fascinating,
+I admit it, positively fascinating!’”
+
+“Yes,” thought Myra, “your Aunt Sophie may be as imbecilic as you like
+about everything else. But she’s right. In this she’s right. Olga _is_
+fascinating. Oh, so fascinating. And she has thrown me aside. What can I
+do? What can I do?”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Myra brooded for days and nights, trying to think of some way out. She
+felt that she would not be able to persist in her pride and say, “She
+does not want me, therefore she no longer exists as far as I am
+concerned.” To be sure, she told herself so, not once, but a hundred
+times. But a much stronger feeling said to her, “It is misunderstandings
+that are separating us, it is impediments that a frank word could
+remove. I must speak to her, I must ask her. She has courage enough and
+hardness enough to tell me the truth. I will make it easier for her.
+I’ll ask in such a way that she can tell me, that she’ll have to tell
+me. And if she says to me, ‘Go and never come back again,’ then I’ll go
+and never come back again. I’ll endeavor to order my life without her
+somehow. I’ll be proud too, but first.... First!”
+
+Myra purchased a bouquet of white roses of a peculiarly stiff and
+melancholy beauty, and took them to Olga.
+
+The maid who let her in received her, beaming with joy. “It’s so long
+since you’ve been here, Miss Rudloff! Miss Radó is up in her room. You
+know your way?”
+
+It seemed impossible to Myra that she should be announced by the maid.
+If Olga were not at home to her, it might lead to an extremely painful
+situation. If Olga were not in a mood to see her, it would, at any rate,
+be much better to say so to her face rather than to learn it from the
+maid.
+
+She stepped quickly and firmly along the endless corridor. But her heart
+beat a little faster as she went.
+
+She rapped lightly on the door and pressed down the latch. Olga was
+sitting at her writing-table, just as she always sat: one hand on her
+open book, her forehead supported in the palm of the other, the fingers
+of which held a cigarette.
+
+As the door opened, she turned her head somewhat unwillingly, her brows
+knitted. Recognition passed like a bright gleam over her features.
+
+“Myra!” she said. “You here again? Where did you come from? What do you
+want?”
+
+Myra tore the paper from the roses, tossed it in the waste basket and
+laid the flowers on the writing-table.
+
+“What do I want?” she said, meanwhile without taking her eyes from what
+she was doing. “To visit you. To see how things are with you. But if you
+wish, I can go again.”
+
+“No!” With a sudden, almost violent gesture, Olga stretched her hand
+after her. Myra laid one finger in it, which Olga clasped tightly. “But
+remember—I did not call you!”
+
+She glanced up at Myra with a strangely compulsive and almost
+threatening expression of the brow and eyes.
+
+“I know it,” said Myra with a bitter smile. “It had not even occurred to
+you to call me. I feel myself that I am intruding. You hardly need tell
+me so flatly.”
+
+She wanted to retract her hand, but Olga held it fast and smiled.
+
+“Child,” she said, “little girl! You make me very, very happy! More than
+you can ever imagine. I think if you knew how happy I am, you would
+become quite conceited. But remember, I did not call you.”
+
+“Yes,” said Myra almost impatiently, “I don’t know why you attach so
+much importance to that statement.”
+
+“But I know,” said Olga quietly. “I don’t want you ever to be able to
+reproach me with being egoistic.”
+
+“Ah,” said Myra, “that’s hilarious! So that I may never reproach
+you—incidentally, I do not know for what—you let me go and die and never
+trouble your head about me! No, you are not a bit egoistic!”
+
+Olga laughed. “I give up. It always comes back on me. One way or the
+other. So let us bear what we can as long as we act sincerely. It’s like
+a fall day outside.”
+
+“It is good to have you here. Light the samovar and bring us a cup of
+tea. We’ll call Peterkin, to come and play something for us.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once as Myra entered the room she saw Olga hastily conceal an open
+letter she had been holding in her hand, under the books on her desk.
+Myra thought that Olga seemed distracted during their greeting, rather
+vexed and embarrassed.
+
+“What is the matter?” she asked, without relinquishing Olga’s hand. “Has
+something provoked you? You look so comical today.”
+
+“I?” Olga flushed. Again that sudden, dark wave of blood overspread her
+features, making them appear all the paler the next moment. “What are
+you thinking of? What could have provoked me? Quite the contrary.”
+
+“Quite the contrary?” said Myra with a somewhat forced gaiety. “Is it
+pleasure that is making you like this? Then it would be indiscreet to
+question further. Let’s talk of something else. I’ve brought back your
+Chamberlain. And also your Herz. Father has him in the library.”
+
+They talked of this and that. But Myra could not forget the letter.
+While they were speaking, her thoughts kept straying into other
+channels.
+
+“What can it be?” she thought. “Jealousy? Have I any right to be
+jealous? What do I mean by being hurt, suspicious, yes, actually angry,
+because this woman receives a letter which she does not want to let me
+see? Good God in Heaven, she is not bound nor obligated to me in any
+way. She may be secretly engaged, may have a dozen love affairs—why
+should I expect her to tell me everything or make me her confidante?
+What business is it of mine what letters she receives?”
+
+Myra was vexed and scolded herself. And all the while she fretted and
+was sad and struggled against her feelings and could not conquer them.
+
+“It isn’t jealousy,” she thought, “it isn’t an insane desire to possess.
+It is simply the understanding that life is only bearable when people go
+hand in hand. It is the consciousness that I can only go on if Olga
+takes my hand and leads me. Now I have a feeling as if she had let go my
+hand, that a door has shut between us, that I am left alone, helpless,
+in the dark, and that she is going laughingly along—I don’t know with
+whom....”
+
+Olga was called to the telephone. It was some time before she returned.
+Myra was sitting a few feet from the desk. One corner of the letter was
+peeping out from beneath a pile of books. If she stretched out her hand,
+she could touch it, could draw it out, without rising from her chair.
+
+It was a painful struggle. She would have liked to slap herself because
+she could think of but one thing to do. She meant to commit a crime. Oh,
+it was worse than that, was indelicate, tactless, contemptible. But she
+thought of a thousand excuses for herself.
+
+“It isn’t just curiosity,” a voice cried within her. “Whom will I be
+hurting by it? Who will it make suffer? Nobody. Neither her nor the
+person who wrote the letter. And it is of such immense importance to me.
+Here I cling to her with every fibre of my body, and yet I do not really
+know what kind of person she is. Why is she so reserved? If I can arrive
+at some certainty that will alter my whole life at one stroke, I will do
+it at any cost—even at the cost of a crime.”
+
+With one twitch she had drawn out the letter. Her heart was pounding
+like mad; there was a thick film over her eyes so that the letters
+danced on the paper. There was the letterhead of some firm, a few
+words—“pay”....
+
+Myra heard Olga’s voice at the door and hastily crammed the letter into
+her pocket. Olga would probably never miss it. And although she had
+hardly read it, hardly understood what it contained, Myra already had a
+plan.
+
+She was extraordinarily anxious to get home that day, and so abstracted
+and laconic that Olga finally asked, “What is the matter with you today?
+Has something happened? Are you in a bad humor?”
+
+Myra was amused as she recalled the conversation when she arrived.
+“Quite the contrary,” she said with an exaggerated emphasis that escaped
+Olga. “I’m in an unusually good humor!”
+
+Myra locked herself into her room and studied the letter as if it were a
+momentous document. So this was the love letter which had been kept
+secret from her.
+
+The company “again” requested a payment of several hundred marks, “in
+default whereof we regret that we shall have to place the matter in the
+hands of our attorney.”
+
+Myra’s heart was filled to overflowing with a tender pity.
+
+“Poor dear pet,” she thought, “so that’s how they plague you!”
+
+She raised the letter and was tempted for a moment to carry it to her
+lips. Then she began to calculate. The few marks that she could save
+from her pocket-money—no, that would never be enough. She had squandered
+too much, namely for the flowers. But hadn’t she something else? Her
+roving glance searched the room. Books? No, she would give them up only
+in case of extreme necessity. But her jewelry! All that trash for which
+she cared absolutely nothing! No one would ever ask what had become of
+bracelets and rings, necklaces and scarf-pins. She never wore such
+things. At worst, she could pretend she had lost them. Or she could
+redeem this or that bauble from her pocket-money.
+
+She wrapped the entire contents of her jewel-case in tissue paper and
+thrust it deep into the pocket of her coat.
+
+The way to the pawn-shop was not hard to find. Myra recalled almost with
+pleasure that she was not unpractised in enterprises of this nature.
+
+It was much harder to take the money to the fashion-shop. In doing so,
+Myra had a feeling that she was perpetrating some dreadful deception.
+After all, she had a perfect right to pawn whatever jewelry had been
+given to her. But to act for Olga Radó, to do something in Olga Radó’s
+name, that seemed an unheard of piece of daring to her. And it was so
+difficult to assume the correct tone. To have debts was, according to
+everything that Myra had ever heard or been told, something very
+dishonorable, almost unclean.
+
+Therefore, when one came at last to pay a debt after many duns, one must
+be humble, must sue for pardon. But it was different when one came for
+Olga Radó. Then one could come only in the manner of a princely emissary
+and with majestic superiority discharge the forgotten trifle.
+
+Myra put on her best dress and her top-loftiest expression. It all went
+much better than she had expected. The people really did treat her like
+a princely emissary, and she was very proud about it, doubly proud
+because she felt that their all but obsequious amiability was meant for
+Olga Radó.
+
+Yes, all that was very easy. But now that she had the receipted bill in
+her pocket, nothing in the world could have given her the courage to
+return it to Olga. She consoled herself with the thought that it
+probably wasn’t necessary. The shop would not dun her any further, and
+Olga would forget the affair.
+
+After a week, Myra was still secretly triumphant and thought that all
+perils were happily averted. But one day she was received by Olga with a
+stony face.
+
+“What on earth can be in your mind!” said Olga instead of her usual
+greeting. “What right have you to do a thing like that in my name?”
+
+“I?” said Myra, struggling to assume an innocent expression, “What have
+I done?”
+
+“You know very well what you’ve done!” said Olga harshly, “You’ve acted
+irresponsibly. Irresponsibly! I won’t tolerate any meddling with my
+affairs. Least of all from you. Can’t you see the unheard of presumption
+in your conduct? Are you going to appoint yourself my guardian? Or do
+you intend to support me? What on earth can you be thinking of?” She
+paced to and fro with long strides. Her tone became more and more
+heated, more violent. Suddenly, she stopped short, leaning against the
+desk, stood arms akimbo and asked very quietly, with simply a gentle
+movement of her hand, “How did you get hold of the bill anyway?”
+
+Myra was terrified. This was the moment she had dreaded. All the rest
+might have been foolish, but it was generously and unselfishly done. She
+could defend it with an appearance of rectitude, at least in her own
+eyes. But to this question she had no excuse to offer.
+
+Now the game was up. No lie could save her now. So she resolved
+defiantly, desperately, to tell the truth. She threw back her head and
+glanced at Olga with an expression that seemed to say: “I deserve death,
+but I do not fear it.”
+
+“I stole it,” she said. “From your desk.”
+
+Olga remained quite calm. She merely knitted her brows a little as if
+trying to recollect. “It came while you were there, didn’t it?”
+
+“Yes!”
+
+“But I didn’t leave it lying open. Now I remember very well—I pushed it
+somewhere under the books.”
+
+“Yes,” said Myra, gritting her teeth, “but I took it out from under the
+books.”
+
+“When?” asked Olga genuinely astonished.
+
+“While you were telephoning.”
+
+Olga did not answer. She bowed her head and stared in silence at the
+floor. Myra saw that her mouth was tightly shut, but she was biting her
+lower lip.
+
+Her silence was more dreadful than the harshest words. Myra felt that
+she was really incredibly depraved. And the inquisition was by no means
+at an end. Many more questions followed, much more terrifying.
+
+After a while, Olga raised her head. “But you had no way of knowing what
+it was. It might just as well have been a personal letter.”
+
+Myra’s forehead began to burn. “Now I will have to lie,” she thought for
+a moment, “I’ll have to say I saw the figures or the letter-head.” But
+she could not lie. She had done something so contemptible that she had
+no right to purchase Olga’s forgiveness with a lie. She must confess,
+apologize, atone.
+
+“That is what I thought, too!” she said as if with sudden resolution.
+But she could not look at Olga’s face while she said it. She stared past
+her at the window. But without looking, she saw Olga make a sudden angry
+gesture which she instantly controlled.
+
+“So that is what you thought?” she said.
+
+To Myra it seemed as if she made this effort, as if she forced herself
+to speak so softly in order not to scream.
+
+“But tell me, you must have had some reason. I can’t believe that you
+would go rummaging in every strange letter, like a maid, out of mere
+curiosity.”
+
+“No,” said Myra. “I did have a reason, of course I had a reason. But I
+can’t tell you what it is.”
+
+“If you can’t tell me what it is,” said Olga with a gentle smile, “then
+I will not ask you either. But reason or no reason, do you think it was
+a very pretty thing to do?”
+
+“No,” said Myra honestly.
+
+“No, I don’t think so either,” said Olga quickly. But after a pause she
+added reflectively, almost as if it hurt her, “But understandable. If I
+wanted to keep anything secret, my dear child, I would do it so artfully
+that you and your silly little tricks would never even find it out.”
+
+It was said in a tone of such scornful superiority that Myra blenched.
+She felt the truth of those words, she felt that Olga was as if
+surrounded by a wall, one through which she, stupid, little, Myra, could
+never penetrate to the heart of this being, even by tracking her like a
+criminal and reading her letters.
+
+It seemed as if Olga sensed Myra’s dumb terror. For she said suddenly in
+her deep, warm voice, “For the rest, I never conceal things from you.
+Nothing that could be of any interest to you. I write no love letters
+and receive none. But if there is ever anything that you are itching to
+find out, ask me—it is the easiest way.”
+
+Her kindly, cordial tone did Myra no end of good, ten-fold good after
+all the anxiety she had endured. She made an involuntary movement. A
+feeling that welled up hotly within her drove her to Olga, to kiss her
+hands in gratitude. Olga saw or sensed this emotion—and averted it. It
+was a barely perceptible twitching of her eyebrows that frightened Myra
+back and held her spellbound where she stood.
+
+It was not until Myra had put on her hat and was going that Olga asked
+suddenly, “Will you do me a favor, Myra?”
+
+“Anything,” said Myra with conviction.
+
+“But this is no easy task—I....”
+
+“So much the better!”
+
+“No, no, it’s nothing heroic in the romantic style. Something quite
+unpleasant in a paltry way.” She bit her lip and hesitated. “I should
+prefer to do it in any other way, but I don’t know how. I want you to do
+something that you have certainly never done before in all your life—to
+pawn something for me.”
+
+Myra broke into a laugh. “There you underestimate me considerably. The
+pawn-shop is one of the commonest of my childhood memories.”
+
+“Why, Myra!”
+
+“It’s a long story. I must tell it to you some time. But first you tell
+me what it is you want.”
+
+“I want you to take this and pawn it for me.”
+
+With a sudden gesture Olga swept the cigarette case from the desk and
+gave it to Myra, who took it, shocked, in both hands.
+
+“But you can’t do that, Olga!”
+
+Olga gazed out the window. “Don’t discuss it, please,” she said in a
+hard voice, without turning her head. “I alone know what I can, and what
+I must do!”
+
+Myra was silent. There was no contradicting that tone. But she was not
+convinced.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Myra kept remembering the tender gesture with which Olga had once
+pressed the cigarette case to her cheek. And then she recalled the
+pawn-broker’s hairy hand with its flattened, dirt-rimmed nails. No, she
+could not lay the scorpion in those hands.
+
+She took the case to a jeweler and had it appraised. She did not have
+enough money in her possession to accomplish the pious deception which
+she had in mind.
+
+But she knew how to remedy that. Not in vain had she been Frieda
+Ellert’s pupil. She knew very well how to get at the silverware, and
+which cases contained the most valuable pieces.
+
+As Myra stole secretly to the side-board, she thought of a dozen years
+before and smiled. It was no longer as exciting as it had seemed then.
+Although, if Aunt Emily were to discover it, it would lead to precisely
+the same unpleasantness. Her aunt was prepared to call in a psychiatrist
+again. What a ridiculous farce the whole business really was. In a year
+she would be of age, and free to dispose of her grandmother’s legacy,
+and yet for the sake of a hundred marks today, she had to steal in her
+own father’s house!
+
+“Will you let me have the ticket?” asked Olga when they met.
+
+“The ticket?” Myra grew a trifle embarrassed and rummaged in her pocket.
+“Yes, just a minute! What did I do with it? Don’t worry, it’s here
+somewhere. But first I’ll count out the money!”
+
+“Not necessary,” said Olga emphatically. “The money is just where it
+belongs. No scenes, please! I have given you no right to insult me.”
+
+“I don’t understand,” said Myra disconcerted. “What does it all mean?”
+
+“It means that I would far rather sit at a street corner and beg than to
+be obligated to you for money. I sent you to the pawn-shop simply so
+that the money would be given into your own hands. Otherwise, I should
+have had to force it on you, and I hate such scenes. Now that’s enough,
+I don’t want to hear another word about it!”
+
+“But....”
+
+“Not another word, I said. As for the ticket, you can keep it, and
+redeem it for me later. I would rather not see in whose hands it had
+been. I’ll give you the money for it the first chance I get.” She
+laughed quickly. “When, the gods alone know! Come, let’s play a game of
+chess. I’ll concede you a castle.”
+
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+
+“You know,” said Olga the next time they met, “I have an idea. Don’t you
+think I could give instruction in languages, Myra? Five lessons every
+day, at two marks a lesson, makes ten marks, and one can certainly live
+on that if one manages very carefully.”
+
+“A wonderful idea,” said Myra angrily. “In the first place, I see you
+living on ten marks a day. And in the second place, I should never see
+you at all any more.”
+
+“What on earth are you complaining about!” said Olga, laughing. “You
+spend every day God gives us from morning till noon and from noon till
+night with me!”
+
+“If it’s too much,” said Myra soberly and somewhat hurt, “all you have
+to do is say so.”
+
+“Never fear,” Olga consoled her, “I can take care of myself. If I want
+to be rid of anybody, I am perfectly explicit!”
+
+“Thank heaven. If only I can depend on that. But it is I who have the
+idea. We’ll combine pleasure with profit. You give me five hours
+instruction in foreign languages, and I will have my father pay you for
+it—at his own express request.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+But it did not go quite as smoothly as Myra had anticipated. Aunt Emily
+herself went to look for language teachers, and unearthed a pair of very
+dignified elderly ladies. A sixty-four-year-old professor was, in her
+opinion, questionable because he was unmarried. She took Myra herself to
+introduce her niece.
+
+As a result, Myra had the painful task of declining their instruction.
+
+But at least, she succeeded in getting her father to give the money for
+the classes directly to her instead of sending a money order or having
+the bank arrange it.
+
+Olga was very exact with the lessons. She insisted on a conscientious
+punctuality and, as a teacher, was strict and pedantic. Myra was a
+zealous student in order to live up to her teacher’s good opinion.
+
+So far everything went as planned. Except that Olga did not think to
+economize and live on the money from the lessons.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Peculiar happenings multiplied.
+
+One day Uncle George bobbed up suddenly in the city. Myra had always had
+a special predilection for Uncle George. He was really the only one of
+her relatives whose stately and distinguished appearance, definitely
+masculine manner and a certain matter-of-fact seriousness pleased her
+and even compelled her respect.
+
+He greeted Myra in a peculiar way, with a conscious affability that
+seemed to say: “I’m really quite innocent, there’s no reason for you to
+wonder why I am here or what it has to do with you.”
+
+Myra’s delicate perceptive apparatus instantly registered suspicion. Her
+suspicion was intensified when she heard the key grind as all
+three—Father, Aunt Emily and Uncle George—withdrew into the study.
+
+So they were locking themselves in? What might that mean? Did it concern
+the servants or her?
+
+She had never taken any particular interest in family conferences. But
+the cautious turning of that key aroused an uneasy curiosity in her. She
+sauntered past the door several times. But all she could hear was an
+indistinct murmuring. No doubt about it, they were whispering.
+
+Myra longed to escape the oppressive and unfriendly atmosphere of the
+house.
+
+After dinner, during which only Uncle George had spoken, extolling in
+loud and well-rounded periods the beauties of the little city and the
+virtues of its children, Myra finally ventured a question.
+
+“You are all going to sleep after dinner, aren’t you? Then may I spend
+an hour with my friend before tea?”
+
+A general silence followed. All three looked at one another, nobody
+looked at Myra and nobody answered.
+
+Her father cast an uneasy glance that seemed to beseech succor, from one
+to the other. Uncle George drummed on the table and looked expectant.
+Aunt Emily cleared her throat and distorted the corners of her tightly
+compressed mouth in a sweetish grimace that was intended for a friendly
+smile.
+
+Nobody spoke. Aunt Emily did not wish to obtrude herself. She withheld
+her answer, waiting to see if either of the men would reply. But they
+did not look as if they intended to break the painful silence within the
+next few moments.
+
+They had left it up to her, hence she must speak. She drew herself up
+and made a face whose wrinkles were intended to express profound
+sympathy and serious concern. But to Myra it seemed as if those sharp
+little eyes were flashing, as if that rigidly erect lean body was
+trembling with malicious joy.
+
+“I guess you will have to omit that today, for a change, my dear child,”
+she said in a gentle tone, but her voice was as sharp as a knife. “We
+are expecting a visit this afternoon which concerns you most
+particularly.”
+
+“Me?” asked Myra, and glanced at her father.
+
+But Rudloff veiled his eyes and endeavored to control a nervous
+twitching of his lips. He did not answer.
+
+“Yes, you!” said Aunt Emily as affably as if she were announcing a great
+pleasure to Myra.
+
+At that moment, Myra felt that danger was threatening her. She felt as
+if she were caught in the fine meshes of a net, which would be drawn
+over her head the next moment by a slight twitch of Aunt Emily’s bony
+fingers.
+
+She felt as if all the doors were locked and guarded, as if nothing
+could save her now, but at this very moment, without hesitation, without
+a second thought, to jump out the window, and to run, as long as her
+breath lasted, to rush in mad flight through the streets to Olga.
+
+She turned pale and started to run. It was not even a start, it was only
+the will to move that thrilled her muscles. But Uncle George must have
+perceived it.
+
+“Now, no, Myra!” he said in a somewhat forced tone of kindness and
+assurance. “Just keep cool, my lass! Nobody’s going to do anything to
+you. You must simply have confidence in us and say to yourself that
+everything that happens is happening, in the last analysis, for your own
+good. You must try to help us a little in our efforts, which are
+motivated wholly by a regard for your welfare, and not make our task
+more difficult by any childish spleen. Thus by a mutual effort we will
+get over this period, and later on you will be very grateful to us for
+having used a loving coercion to put you on the right track. You’ll look
+back on this period as on a bad dream of no significance for your later
+life.”
+
+This solemn pronouncement increased Myra’s vague uneasiness to all but
+insane terror. It was all so mysterious and incomprehensible. She knew
+that Aunt Emily was only waiting for a question in order to gush forth
+in a torrent of words. Therefore she did not ask any. But what had
+happened? What was about to happen?
+
+“Out the window! Out the window!” was the only thing she could think of.
+But the moment she heard the door-bell ring, she shrank within herself,
+for she knew that it was too late.
+
+The maid came slinking in, as if she were entering a sick-chamber, and
+handed Franz Rudloff a card.
+
+His hand trembled as he took it from the little silver tray. He had to
+support himself against the table in rising. His face was distorted,
+drawn.
+
+“Have you taken the Professor to my room? I will be there in a moment.”
+
+Hastily he poured himself a swallow of water. His stiff, starched cuff
+rattled against the carafe.
+
+He went out, making a visible effort not to stagger, and to hold himself
+upright.
+
+The three who were left sat on in silence. But Myra could not bear to
+remain at the table. When she rose, Uncle George made a hasty gesture as
+if to detain her. But she did not go to the door, she would make no
+further effort to escape. She went to the window and gazed through the
+drawn lace curtains down at the street.
+
+Monotonous cries ascended of children at play. A delivery truck drew up
+and stopped at the house opposite. The driver’s helper jumped out,
+unlocked the back, loaded himself with parcels and closed the doors
+again with a sharp bang.
+
+Every movement, every sound impressed itself with unusual distinctness
+on Myra’s brain. She was aware of nothing, nothing, but the sharp
+perception of commonplace things.
+
+The door opened behind her back. She heard her father’s restrained and
+rather hoarse voice saying, “Emily, will you be so kind as to come here
+a moment?” Then the scraping of a chair and the rustle of skirts. Myra
+did not turn.
+
+The door closed again.
+
+Now she was alone with Uncle George. Now she might have asked him for
+some kind of explanation. Of these three individuals he was by far the
+most sensible. Ah, but what use was it? He, too, was a stranger to her,
+an utter stranger.
+
+“Mother!” she thought as something like a convulsive sob rose in her
+throat. “Dear, good mother, why did you leave me alone, all alone in
+this world?”
+
+When the door next opened, and her father appeared and said nervously,
+“Please, come with me, Myra,” she experienced a feeling almost of joy—as
+a man who has studied well rejoices at an examination, or a brave man at
+a battle.
+
+She walked with a perfectly firm step through the room, smiling a
+superior, rather disdainful, smile.
+
+At her entrance, a slight man with sharp features and piercing eyes rose
+from her father’s chair. In his well-trimmed pointed black beard several
+premature white hairs were showing.
+
+As no one appeared to be going to introduce him, he murmured his own
+name, with a slight bow, while casting at the others a glance that
+resembled a command for instant withdrawal.
+
+Rudloff was visibly relieved, but Aunt Emily hesitated and departed
+grudgingly. Even at the door, she cast back a long and curious glance,
+but the Professor did not utter a word, did not make a gesture until she
+had closed the door.
+
+Then he drew up a chair. “Please be seated.”
+
+Myra sat down obediently.
+
+The man in front of her leaned forward somewhat. “And now, my child,” he
+said in a soft, almost ingratiating voice, “tell me that you will trust
+me.”
+
+Myra drew herself up stiffly. “I certainly shall not, Professor!” she
+said quietly.
+
+The man drew back a little.
+
+“What does that mean?” he asked in surprise.
+
+“It means,” said Myra while her heart throbbed as if it would burst,
+“that my Aunt called you in, and that I distrust everything she does.
+Probably she intends to shut me up in an insane asylum, and your
+function is to declare me mentally deranged. She held a similar party
+for me when I was quite a little girl. But if you are a psychiatrist,
+you know that the feeling that one is under observation is capable of
+inducing something resembling insanity, even in the most normal of
+individuals. And you will make allowance for that in my case.”
+
+The physician smiled—a shrewd smile.
+
+“I have not the slightest reason to question your exceptional mental
+ability. On the contrary, nobody questions it. And neither has anyone
+the slightest intention of shutting you up in an insane asylum. I came
+here to talk with you a little, because of certain scientific and human
+interests. May I ask you a few questions?”
+
+“Certainly!” said Myra, “I probably will answer your questions more
+exactly if you will permit me to smoke a cigarette.”
+
+“Gladly!” said the Professor obligingly.
+
+Myra took the cigarette case from the table and offered him one. He
+accepted and while he scratched his lighter and held the little flame
+for her he asked in a casual tone, “You are a confirmed smoker, are you
+not?”
+
+“I got into the habit studying,” she said. “It helps me concentrate. And
+as I can’t rid myself yet of the suspicion that you will construe some
+stupid answer into feeble-mindedness....”
+
+The Professor laughed. “I would have a hard time doing that. However,
+you are right, one can chat much more easily over a cigarette. But tell
+me now, what was this affair you mentioned? What kind of wicked designs
+did your estimable Aunt have on you when you were a little girl?”
+
+“Oh,” said Myra, “she called in a children’s psychiatrist because I took
+the silver from the side-board.”
+
+“Aha!” said the Professor with an interested and amused smile. “Why did
+you do that? Did you like silver?”
+
+“No, I pawned it!”
+
+“Pawned it!” The Professor laughed aloud. “How did such an idea ever get
+into your child’s head?”
+
+“It was not my own,” said Myra seriously. From the hazy past the image
+of Frieda rose clearly and distinctly. “My governess led me to do it. I
+was completely under her influence, which was not a very good one.”
+
+“Ah!” said the Professor with mild astonishment. “Are you easily
+influenced? You do not look it. Probably there is nothing on earth that
+could make you do such a thing now!”
+
+“The Devil!” said Myra in sudden terror. “I forgot to redeem that stupid
+silver!”
+
+The Professor was tremendously amused, but he did not let her see it.
+
+“What,” he asked, “the silver you pawned ten years ago? It certainly
+must be lost by now!”
+
+“No,” said Myra, frankly, “that which I just pawned. I clean forgot it!”
+
+“Don’t worry about it,” said the Professor amiably, “it has already been
+redeemed.”
+
+For a moment Myra did not quite comprehend. “How can that be? Nobody
+knew about it.”
+
+“The ticket was found in your pocket.”
+
+“Found!” Myra sprang up. “Found? That is to say, that that shameless
+person has been going through my things again! Oh, what a pity that I
+did not catch her at it—I think I would have throttled her with my bare
+hands!”
+
+“Please sit down,” said the Professor, not sharply, but so imperatively
+that Myra obeyed.
+
+“If by ‘that person’ you mean your Aunt, I should urge her, as a man and
+a physician, to supervise you more closely than is customary among adult
+human beings.”
+
+“I am an adult human being,” said Myra angrily.
+
+“You are a child,” said the physician mildly, “a child that does not
+even suspect the danger it is getting into, but who will be very
+grateful to us all once it has grown up and learned to understand from
+what we protected it.”
+
+“I believe you are mistaken,” said Myra, in an icy voice. “I am not in
+any danger. But if I were, I can protect myself.”
+
+“As long as you are not of age, you cannot refuse our helping hand.”
+
+It sounded kindly, but quite definite. “I question whether you would
+find in yourself the necessary strength to break with the friend who is
+at present influencing you.”
+
+The blood rushed suddenly to Myra’s heart. She felt that she had turned
+as white as snow.
+
+“What do you know about my friend?” she asked bluntly. She felt as if
+she could not breathe.
+
+The physician smiled a superior smile. “In any case, more than you.”
+
+“I doubt that,” Myra interrupted in a hard, disdainful tone. But his
+composure was not to be ruffled.
+
+“I know,” he said imperturbably, but firmly, “that you are under the
+influence of a woman who can do you a great deal of harm. I understand
+you quite well. You _are_ a child. I will not deny that the lady
+possesses intelligence and charm. You are proud of this friendship and
+would be willing to sacrifice anything for her. You would let this
+friendship start you on a path of crime....”
+
+“Oh, bosh!” said Myra.
+
+“I understand you to be contradicting me. But just let your cool
+intelligence come into play for a moment and think logically. You
+purloin silver from your parents’ side-board. You ask your father for
+money for lessons and spend it on automobile excursions with your
+friend, on champagne and tickets for the Opera. You pay your friend’s
+dress-maker’s bills with money that you have come by in irregular ways.
+Yes, my child, don’t you see yourself what an abyss you are heading
+for?”
+
+How did they know all that? As if lit up by a flash of lightning, the
+whole chain of events was suddenly clear to Myra. They had had a
+detective watch every step she took. Wherever she went, strange eyes had
+been glued to her, strange eyes and Aunt Emily’s notions.
+
+Myra sat quite still and did not stir. She felt as if brutal hands were
+tearing her clothes from her body piece by piece. Not the hands of this
+stranger; it was Aunt Emily’s hands that were doing it, it was Aunt
+Emily’s face she saw before her, wreathed in a mocking smirk and
+slavering with foul enjoyment. Slowly, slowly, Myra’s fingers clenched
+to a fist. She bowed her head; the corners of her mouth twitched and she
+swallowed hard.
+
+Again the Professor’s voice came softly and soothingly. “Just think back
+on your childhood! Didn’t you love this young woman who influenced you
+as a child? And aren’t you glad and grateful now that you were separated
+from her? Well, you will be just as grateful to us later on when you are
+capable of judging. If you stop to think, you know it now in your heart
+of hearts. It is you who are the true friend. It is you who love, who
+sacrifice yourself. It is you who are used, are treated as a plaything,
+or denied on occasion, and sooner or later tossed aside. Do you imagine
+that this is the first case I have seen? Meanwhile you will be ruined
+for the rest of your life, made sick in body and soul, robbed of every
+possibility of happiness. What is left for you? According to your
+capacities—death or suicide. I have seen terrible tragedies come about
+in this way....”
+
+Myra strove in vain against the impression which the words made upon
+her. Her tensed nerves felt a cold breath that made her shudder to the
+very core of her being. It seemed to her like a warning cry from the
+darkly veiled future. Death—the end! A fearful something strode
+inexorably toward her, casting its cold shadow in advance. She shivered.
+She had to make an effort to regain her outward calm. She dug her nails
+in the arms of her chair and swallowed once or twice.
+
+“All that is quite aside from the point,” she said at last with an
+effort. “Perhaps you will be so good as to tell me why they really
+called you in and what they have decided concerning me. If not an insane
+asylum, do they intend to shut me up in a cloister, or a reform school,
+or send me to America?”
+
+The physician smiled. “None of those things. But you will leave in a
+short time to stay with your Uncle George and his family. There in the
+fresh air and amidst quiet surroundings, your nerves will grow strong
+again and you will be in a position to make sane and healthy judgments
+unassisted.”
+
+“When do I leave?” asked Myra curtly.
+
+“Today!”
+
+“At least I have to pack my suitcase!”
+
+“It has been packed while we were talking!”
+
+That was what she had feared. Myra felt the walls, the hand-cuffs. She
+glanced about her like a hunted animal driven into a trap. No escape
+anywhere, no possibility of flight.
+
+They were separating her from Olga. That was bad, but not the worst.
+They were doing it by force. They should have asked her to take this
+journey, they should have allowed her time, time to say good-bye, time
+for an explanation, time to pack her own things, her books. Now Aunt
+Emily was at her bureau, was packing for her, was rummaging around. In
+an hour she would be sitting in the train, without having been able to
+inform Olga. And Uncle George would be sitting across from her—as her
+keeper. And what would happen here in the meanwhile—to her desk, her
+books, to Olga....
+
+She had a desire to tear something to pieces, to dash out her brains
+against the walls. She did nothing. She rose from her chair, quite pale.
+
+“Is that all?” she asked.
+
+“I am delighted,” said the Professor, rising at the same time, “that you
+agree to this journey.”
+
+“Agree?” said Myra with a contemptuous twitch of the lips. “I submit to
+coercion because I know that all resistance is useless. If my Aunt
+wished, she could have dragged me off in chains, and my father would
+look on, and all the courts in the world would uphold her.”
+
+The Professor went up to her and opened the door.
+
+“Miss Myra and I find ourselves in perfect agreement,” he announced
+cheerfully. “I have prescribed a little change of air, and she is
+overjoyed to pass a few weeks under your hospitable roof, Herr von
+Seyblitz!”
+
+Uncle George rubbed his powerful hands, Franz Rudloff attempted a feeble
+smile, and Aunt Emily made a surprised, and as it seemed to Myra,
+disappointed face.
+
+She rushed up to the Professor and hissed in a low voice, but loud
+enough for all to hear, “But you told me, Professor, that you wanted to
+examine her, to see if there were not some physical abnormalities ...
+and I think....”
+
+The Professor endeavored in vain to silence her by a slight motion of
+the hand and eyelids. It was too late.
+
+Myra had already heard. Had suddenly, instantly, understood. It was too
+late.
+
+She was conscious only of the fierce desire to see this horrible
+creature die under her hands. She did not know she moved. The floor
+moved under her feet. She heard a gurgling that was strange and hideous,
+and yet seemed to come from her own throat. She felt her fingers close
+on a thin, withered neck, felt at the same moment her own wrists gripped
+by hands that were like iron, gripped so tightly that all the blood
+seemed to stop in her veins and she thought she would smother. She felt
+she could not endure this torture one heart-beat longer.
+
+“Let me go!” she growled. “Let me go!”
+
+The physician immediately released her right arm, and a moment later
+Uncle George released her left.
+
+Then her wrists began to ache. She rubbed them quite mechanically. She
+felt exhausted, quiet, shattered. She was almost happy at the idea that
+she must leave this house, these people, at once, this very moment.
+
+She turned to the physician. “When does the train leave? Isn’t it time
+to get ready?”
+
+“We are going the same way, I think,” the Professor remarked casually
+when the auto had drawn up before the door. “Have you room in the car?”
+
+Myra looked at him in surprise and with a little smiling scorn.
+“Subterfuge is unnecessary, Professor, if you want to take me to the
+station. My family will gladly forego the pleasure. It is better for all
+concerned.”
+
+She gave her father her finger-tips, which he clasped in both hands.
+“Good-bye, papa, take care of yourself.”
+
+Aunt Emily drew back against the wall as if she feared a new assault on
+her life, but Myra passed her with a contemptuous glance.
+
+The journey on the train was longer than she expected. Myra gazed
+intently out the window, striving to impress on her mind the name of
+every station, every village, every crossing. It was possible that she
+would have to return on foot.
+
+She had no money—whether she would have the opportunity to pawn or sell
+valuables was doubtful. She glanced at the mileage-signs—fifty miles
+from home. She could make four miles an hour with ease. Too bad it
+wasn’t summer. It wouldn’t be pleasant passing the night in the open at
+two below zero.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VII
+
+
+Myra sat on the window-sill in the bright, friendly mansard room,
+smoking a cigarette and polishing her nails. On the white cover of the
+sewing-table which Myra had degraded or advanced to a dressing-table, a
+thick, little, black book lay open—The New Testament.
+
+The door was pushed ajar and her Cousin Herman insinuated himself
+through the crack. But he stopped midway and stood toying with the
+latch.
+
+“Coming down for supper, or have you still got a headache?” he asked
+laconically.
+
+“Shut the door, child,” Myra commanded in a low voice. She did not want
+the cigarette smoke to float downstairs and assail Aunt Antonia’s
+sensitive nostrils.
+
+The boy closed the door but continued to toy with the latch.
+
+“Why do you hang on to the door?” asked Myra, amused. “Come in, come in!
+Take a seat!”
+
+The boy hesitated. “Of course, we’re not supposed to come up here,” he
+ventured. “But if your headache is better, I guess you can’t be sick any
+more!”
+
+“Sick?” said Myra in some surprise. “Are you supposed not to come up
+here because I’m sick?”
+
+“Yes,” said the twelve-year-old, too shrewdly for his age, “because it’s
+contagious!”
+
+“Ah, Mannie!” Myra uttered a short laugh. “My sickness certainly isn’t
+contagious.”
+
+“What kind of a sickness have you?” The boy drew nearer curiously.
+
+Myra hesitated. The boy cast a covetous glance at the cigarettes.
+
+“Give me one!” he begged suddenly.
+
+“Certainly,” said Myra. “As many as you like. But you’ve got to mail a
+letter for me, secretly, so that not a soul sees you. Can you be
+depended on?” Myra glanced at him sharply and searchingly. The boy’s
+honor was touched.
+
+“Do you think I’d let myself get caught?” he said with conviction. “What
+do you think I am, a dummy?”
+
+He received the cigarettes and the letter and stowed them so artfully in
+his blouse that Myra smiled. “This is not the first thing he’s hidden
+from mother’s sharp eyes,” she thought.
+
+But he was still reluctant to go. He hesitated for a while and then came
+out with it. “Say, what kind of sickness _have_ you got?”
+
+Myra wondered what she should tell him. Then her glance fell on the
+cigarette case. “Well, Mannie,” she said after a pause, “I was bitten by
+a scorpion, and now the poison is all through my blood. And you know,
+the only thing that will cure a scorpion’s bite is scorpion’s poison.
+But there aren’t any scorpions here. It’s all superstition that it’s
+contagious. It’s only phalanges that are so poisonous you die from
+washing in a basin that’s been used by somebody who has been bitten by
+one. Your mother has mixed them up.”
+
+“Then it’s not contagious?” asked the boy, venturing a step nearer.
+
+“No!” Myra shook her head with a doleful smile, “I believe that people
+can die of it—but it’s not contagious.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Young Herman, who undertook to convey the letter to the post-office with
+much secrecy and a most important air, was firmly convinced that it must
+be a love letter which had been confided to him. He would have been
+greatly astonished could he have learned that the letter spoke more of
+him, of little Herman himself, than of love.
+
+“Formerly I used to hate my Uncle’s children,” Myra wrote after a
+matter-of-fact recital of the events of the past few days. “I had no
+reason to hate them except that they had such protruding ears. Tell me,
+dear, what has changed me so completely? Now I see character in every
+childish action, I see destinies inextricably bound up with those
+characters. I see that little Anna is going to have a hard time of it in
+life—not merely because her ears stand out—and I feel that I would like
+to help her, to give her something, to multiply the few happy hours of
+her life....
+
+“I have made a discovery, Olga. You’ll laugh at me. My Aunt Antonia has
+closed the bookcase to me and laid the New Testament on my table. I have
+a suspicion that she meant to punish me with it. A year ago, at the
+height of my rebellion, I flung it against the wall and would never have
+believed that I could actually read it again. And yet we’ve made friends
+once more! What a glorious book it is! But you’ll laugh at my discovery
+of the fact. Is there anything beautiful on earth that you do not know
+and love?”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Uncle George and Aunt Antonia were most agreeably surprised by Myra’s
+behavior. They had expected an unmanageable child whom it would be
+necessary to tame, if the occasion required, force. They found a quite
+perfect and lovable young lady. Hence they disliked to be always
+restricting and supervising her, and allowed her one liberty after
+another.
+
+Myra took full advantage of these liberties and began preparations for
+her flight. Day or night, she had never had any other intention and her
+constant preoccupation with such plans kept her in a state of almost
+wantonly happy excitement.
+
+But the first problem was where to find money. Myra sold everything with
+which she could possibly dispense. Still it was not enough. She began to
+dispose of articles from the household. But that was difficult and
+impractical. In the first place, it might be discovered before she was
+gone, and then all would be lost. In the second place, the results did
+not repay the trouble it required, and it hurt her to see valuable
+things given away for a song.
+
+One day Uncle George received a large sum of money by mail, and locked
+it away in the desk, in Myra’s presence.
+
+Myra stared as if hypnotized at the locked desk. Here was all she
+needed, but how could she get at it?
+
+She lay all night without sleeping, or even trying to. Her mind was
+working feverishly. Should she break open the desk that night? There was
+no train at that hour which would be certain to bring her to the city
+before daybreak.
+
+Should she take a wax impression of the lock? The locksmith might become
+suspicious if she asked him to make the key. Should she steal the
+key-ring? They would miss it immediately and search the whole house.
+Should she remove the key to the desk from the ring? They would
+immediately notice that this most important key was missing.
+
+The next day Myra procured a half dozen keys from the locksmith. She
+told him some story about a key to the bookcase which she had lost, and
+was delighted at the assured and unembarrassed manner with which she
+told it.
+
+That night she stole down and tried the keys. Nearly all were easy to
+insert, but they did not unlock the desk.
+
+Next day she asked for her Uncle’s keys in order to get a book from the
+library. While she was kneeling in front of the bookcase, she removed
+the key to the desk from the ring. In its place, she attached one
+resembling it.
+
+She took a book from the case without seeing what it was.
+
+As she handed the keys back to Uncle George, she felt sure he must hear
+the furious throbbing of her pulses. She thought her face must be as
+white as chalk and made an effort to set her frozen lips in a smile.
+
+Her Uncle took the keys without glancing up from his newspaper, and with
+a brief “Thanks,” thrust them into his trousers pocket.
+
+Myra packed her suitcase and sent a telegram. Late in the afternoon, she
+carried the suitcase to the station.
+
+At half past seven they sat down to supper. The train left at half past
+eight. During supper Myra complained of a headache. At her request her
+Uncle gave her a headache-tablet and advised her to lie down
+immediately.
+
+Myra said, “good night,” while the others were still at table.
+
+In order to reach the stairs from the dining-room, she had to pass
+through the darkened living-room. While she listened to their voices in
+the adjoining room, expecting at every moment to hear a chair scrape as
+someone rose, she unlocked the desk and crammed a handful of bills into
+her pocket.
+
+In the hall her coat was hanging, a piece of forethought. She slipped
+into it and opened the little rear-door that gave on the garden. She did
+not dare pass the dining-room windows in front.
+
+There was nothing difficult about swinging herself over the low garden
+fence. She looked back once. That side of the house was completely dark.
+She listened. Not a door opened or window rattled. Then she turned and
+ran as if the Devil were after her, across the fields, to the station.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the journey on the train, she fought against an agony of fear.
+She saw herself pursued, hand-cuffed. The train seemed to crawl along at
+an intolerable pace, and to stop much longer than required at each
+station.
+
+At times she felt that it would be better to get out and run, simply to
+run and run and run until she had no more breath or strength, than to
+wait, an inactive, restless captive, until the lazy engine brought her
+to her destination.
+
+With sudden terror she thought of the possibility that her telegram
+might not arrive in time or that Olga might not be at home to receive
+it.
+
+And what in God’s name was she to do if Olga were not at the station!
+
+To go home was impossible. She could already feel the straight-jacket
+and hand-cuffs. Should she rush through the night to Olga? Ring a
+strange door-bell and wake up the people in the pension? What right had
+she to do that?
+
+There was nothing left but to take a room for a night at a hotel. But
+where would she be safe? Early next morning they would be searching
+everywhere for her. She shuddered to think of what lay ahead.
+
+She shuddered, too, at the thought of a lonely night in a strange room.
+
+There were moments, too, when she regarded her own actions with
+astonishment, terrified by her daring. Suddenly feeling the bills
+crinkling in her waist, she asked herself with amazement, “Good God, how
+did I ever manage to do it?”
+
+At eleven twenty the train arrived at the depot. The light and the
+tumult in the buzzing hall whose vast vault was lost in darkness, was
+still more alarming than the silent night of the fields.
+
+But Olga Radó was there.
+
+Amidst that sea of hurrying, scurrying, searching people she stood
+perfectly still, but drawn up a little taller than usual. Surrounded by
+stupid, stolid, deformed faces, her own pale face shone brightly. From
+under her dark brows, which were knitted as if threateningly, her dark
+eyes sparkled and peered along the line of coaches.
+
+Myra flung open the door before the train stopped. Regardless of all,
+she forced her way through the crowd, jabbing her suitcase into people’s
+knee-joints. She stretched out her hand, no, she clutched like a falling
+man at a support, crying between tears and laughter, “Olga!”
+
+Olga’s face which had turned abruptly to her, remained grave. Not the
+ghost of a smile relaxed those tense features.
+
+“Myra!” she said in her deep voice. “My child! What folly are you up to
+now!”
+
+Myra was a little taken aback. Not much. She would have preferred
+another reception—but what difference did these words make to her or the
+tone of these words? Olga was there. She gazed into her face, held her
+hand, listened to her voice.
+
+Now everything was all right.
+
+“Are you angry?” asked Myra, her eyes laughing, while she clung to
+Olga’s hand. “If you really are angry, you old Philistine, I won’t even
+dare confess all the wicked things I’ve done!”
+
+“I’m not angry,” said Olga earnestly, “I simply refuse to be in any way
+responsible. If you’ve run away, that’s your affair! I have not
+influenced you to it by a single word, a single glance. I knew nothing
+about it. I want to get that straight now and forever!”
+
+“Yes,” said Myra, “but as soon as you’ve got it straight, perhaps you’ll
+tell me whether or not you’re glad to see me.”
+
+“If I must be candid,” said Olga with a vague smile and without looking
+at Myra, “I’m not unglad that you’re here, but I’m a little disturbed.
+Have you reflected at all as to what is to become of you now?”
+
+Myra had thought about it. But reflected? No, that was certainly not the
+right word. She had thought of herself as coming to Olga in order to be
+with Olga, to remain with Olga. She had pictured herself in Olga’s
+comfortable room, the one room in which she had known happy hours, had
+meant to hide herself there, never to go into the street, never to go
+home—now she was aware of the folly of the idea and did not dare to
+declare it to the shrewd eyes watching her.
+
+“I don’t know,” she said pitifully. “I only know that I can never go
+home, never, never, never, never! I’ll look for a job as a nursemaid or
+a chambermaid—anything!”
+
+“Then you might just as well have remained where you were. They
+certainly wouldn’t have beaten you or let you go hungry. Or do you
+expect that you’ll have more freedom as a maid?”
+
+“Yes,” said Myra defiantly, “at least I’ll have my Sundays free and
+nobody can forbid me to spend them with you!”
+
+“Do what you like as far as I’m concerned!” Olga stood still and closed
+her eyes for a moment as if in mortal terror. “You are positively
+brutal, Myra! Don’t you see how you’re going to incriminate me! I can’t
+accept responsibility for this, I can’t!”
+
+They were still standing on the platform which was by then almost
+emptied of its swarming crowds. Only a few night-travellers were still
+hurrying toward the exit.
+
+Myra felt tired and shattered; the light suitcase was like a ton in her
+hand. The draught in the vast hall made her shiver.
+
+“Can’t we sit down in the waiting-room for ten minutes?” she asked
+dejectedly. “Perhaps if I think about it quietly, something will occur
+to me that I can do. But if you feel so tired, why don’t you go home?”
+
+“Yes,” said Olga, “and leave you sitting here alone all night in the
+depot! Have you gone clean crazy, my dear child?”
+
+They sat in the empty waiting-room, warming their cold fingers on their
+glasses of hot tea. Myra related the story of her flight. She took the
+crinkled bills out of her waist and thrust them into her pocket.
+
+Myra had almost expected Olga to laugh. While she was telling the story,
+the whole business struck her like an incredibly comical adventure. But
+Olga’s face remained intensely serious.
+
+“And now?” she asked.
+
+“I’m going to a hotel!”
+
+“And I?”
+
+“You are going back to your pension!”
+
+“I won’t leave you alone.”
+
+“Come with me, then,” said Myra with a flare of hope.
+
+“Yes,” said Olga bitterly, “and the first thing tomorrow morning the
+police will come and arrest us. No thank you. I’ll probably be accused
+of making you commit grand larceny.”
+
+“Then,” said Myra after further reflection, “in that case we’ll have to
+behave like real embezzlers. That is, take the next train and keep
+going. We’ll simply get off at some station or other and go to a hotel.
+From there I’ll write my father, and beg him first of all to straighten
+out the money business. Perhaps he’ll be reasonable and I’ll be able to
+come to some agreement with him. In six months, I’ll receive my
+grandmother’s legacy. If my father won’t give me anything, I’ll borrow
+against my legacy: it can be done somehow.” Myra looked at the huge
+schedule. “The next train leaves at midnight!”
+
+Olga’s face had lost its stern expression. Her eyes were laughing with a
+deep joy. But she still hesitated.
+
+“You’re absolutely crazy!” she said. “No night-dress, no toothbrush!”
+
+“I have linen enough,” said Myra eagerly, “and we can buy a toothbrush!”
+
+“What ideas you do have!” said Olga slowly.
+
+Myra saw that she was already half convinced.
+
+“Grand ideas!” she said radiantly. “Fascinating, entrancing ideas. Don’t
+you think so?”
+
+“Yes, but _I_ never would have thought of it,” said Olga emphatically.
+“_You_ talked me into it. It’s your idea and no one’s else!”
+
+“Absolutely! I’m much too proud of it to let anybody else claim the
+authorship.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The midnight train was a passenger train. They sat alone in a
+compartment for non-smokers, that was dimly illuminated by the
+blue-shaded light in the ceiling. They made an unsuccessful effort to
+remove the shade in order to turn on the little gas flame full force.
+
+“Let it be,” said Myra in fun. “It’s better for us if the compartment is
+dark, then our pursuers can’t recognize us from outside.”
+
+Myra was in such high spirits that she elaborated the idea into a merry
+comedy and even induced Olga to take part.
+
+They played at flight. They stooped whenever anybody passed outside.
+They breathed freely again as soon as the train had started. Myra did
+her hair differently so as not to be recognized. They “bribed” the
+conductor with the “sum” of three marks not to let anybody enter their
+compartment and afterwards, were worried lest the enormous tip might
+cause them to be suspected as embezzlers.
+
+“You know,” said Myra mysteriously, “we certainly ought not to get off
+at the place our tickets call for. If we do, they’ll be after us
+immediately. We’ll simply get off at some other stop.”
+
+“Yes,” Olga agreed, “seven stops from here. Seven is a mystic number.”
+
+Myra was enthusiastic. “It’s beautiful, it’s wonderful! We go on, and we
+don’t know where. We get off, and we don’t know where. We’ll wake up
+early tomorrow morning in a strange city, and won’t know the name of
+it.”
+
+“How strange that sounds!” said Olga, paraphrasing the words. “Like
+something really profound! We live—and we don’t know how! We love—and we
+don’t know why! We die—and we don’t know when!”
+
+“No,” said Myra, “I don’t know when! Thank God! But I do know why! Also,
+thank God!”
+
+The ghost of a shadow seemed to pass over Olga’s face as if she wished
+not to hear what Myra said. “I used to long so dreadfully to know when I
+would die,” she said reflectively. “I think it is so unjust for us to
+know absolutely nothing about how much time we have before us. We ought
+to have a right to regulate that! I used to envy a friend of mine who
+died of tuberculosis. She knew exactly—so much of my lung is left, I can
+live so much longer provided I economize, provided I spare myself. Or I
+have the choice of squandering the rest, of throwing away what’s left.
+That must be beautiful! As it is, you know, I never can leave my room
+until it is cleaned up, because I suffer so from the fixed idea—who
+knows if I shall ever return. The thought is so appalling to me that
+some time I may have just to step out of life and leave everything in
+disorder behind me!”
+
+Myra was on the verge of tears. She wanted to conceal, to dispel the
+sadness that was tormenting her, so she said with affected rudeness,
+“Don’t you think you’re really insane? Perhaps you’ll be good enough to
+choose some other topic of conversation for this dismal night-journey!
+If you don’t, I’m going to sit in the next compartment until you’ve
+finished your meditations.”
+
+“Child!” said Olga, smiling and clasping her hand. “You are quite right!
+Scold me! It’s because of my stupid oracle!”
+
+“Oracle?” said Myra, astounded.
+
+“Haven’t you found that out about me yet? I’m like these old peasant
+women who, whenever they are in trouble, stick a knitting-needle in the
+Bible and fish out a quotation.”
+
+“But you haven’t got a knitting-needle,” said Myra, laughing.
+
+“Nor a Bible either! The Bible must be an heirloom. A new one is no
+good. But you really don’t have to have a Bible for that purpose: you
+can take any book and open it. It’s remarkable, what answers you
+sometimes find. I asked yesterday, for example—when your telegram
+came—whether I should go to the depot....”
+
+“And?” asked Myra in suspense.
+
+“Oh, it’s all silliness,” said Olga with a wry smile. She turned away
+and stared intently out of the window into the black night that was
+flitting by them.
+
+“Of course, it’s silliness,” said Myra sincerely. “But it worries you
+all the same. And you won’t see how really silly it is until you’ve told
+me. So tell me—then we can laugh at it together.”
+
+Olga turned to her again. She was trying to maintain an uncertain smile.
+
+“When Radomonte Gozaga entered Genoa—in some campaign of vengeance or
+other, I don’t remember just what—he wore a doublet on which was
+embroidered a scorpion. Under it was the legend: _Qui vivens laedit,
+morte medetur_.[1] Is that an answer or not?”
+
+[1] “What life wounds, is healed in death.”
+
+Myra seized Olga’s hand. She must rend some veil that the words, which
+had been uttered with such effort, had thrown over her.
+
+“You are certainly insane!” she said. But her voice did not ring true.
+She had to clear her throat of a sudden huskiness.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The brakes ground under the coaches. “The sixth stop!” said Myra
+mysteriously, her eyes big. “The next is our fate. I hope to heaven, it
+isn’t a large city.”
+
+When the train was once more in motion, they began to make ready to get
+off. The next stop might be ten minutes or an hour distant—they did not
+know.
+
+They had placed their suitcase on the seat, and were standing side by
+side at the window, their faces pressed against the pane in an effort to
+penetrate the darkness rushing past.
+
+“There are lots of woods in this country,” said Olga, “pine woods!”
+
+“Yes,” Myra exulted, “we’ll go walking in them tomorrow.”
+
+The woods ended. A slate-gray, clouded sky hung above long, gently
+rolling, dark fields. More trees, at first singly, then a thick black
+woods that extended to the railway embankment, and above which not a
+scrap of sky was to be seen.
+
+Again, the trees grew more sparsely, disappeared. Again, broad fields.
+Then at a distance they could not estimate, as though set between the
+gently rolling furrows, a tiny light twinkled. Another, and another.
+
+“Look! Look!” cried Myra, in raptures. “Maybe that’s our stop.”
+
+“Strange,” said Olga, “maybe one of those lights will be in our window
+tomorrow morning. And perhaps we’ll have a feeling of home when we pass
+those lights ten years hence. But now we don’t even know the name of the
+place.”
+
+A watchman’s shack flitted past. Now and again a section of shiny rails
+was lit up by a lantern. Once more woods grew right up to the tracks,
+but more open, criss-crossed by numerous paths. Then a hedge ran along
+beside them for a while. After the clipped hedge, a bright wooden fence.
+Behind it, quite close at hand, the outlines of individual houses
+already loomed darkly. A rather smoky lantern, and gates that closed a
+dark tree-bordered highway.
+
+Other bits of woods and gardens. Beyond them, little light after little
+light. The train was slowing, creaking, puffing. Wooden columns flashed
+out suddenly, supporting the roof of a narrow shelter. The train
+stopped.
+
+Olga seized the suitcase, lifted the latch and sprang down the high
+steps. Myra followed her, in a strange dreamy trance. She was worn out
+by the two sleepless nights; her senses, sharpened a thousandfold,
+seemed to notice everything. The thin film of hoar-frost that covered
+the earth and the trunks of the trees, the coarse faces of two women in
+peasant’s attire, who hurried past, the conductor’s long-drawn shout,
+the leisurely slamming of doors, the red hands in knitted mittens, of
+the man at the guard-gates, the little dark room, its walls pasted up
+with bills, and the worn benches, the whistle of the departing train
+behind her—all was impressed on her mind with ineradicable distinctness.
+
+Olga pushed open a door, descended a flight of stone steps, and they
+were standing on the uneven flag-stones of a broad square, feebly
+illuminated by the lights of the station.
+
+Left and right—pitch darkness. As far as they could see—nothing but
+bare, twisted trees, unpaved, sodden paths, slightly frozen over.
+
+At a little distance there was something that resembled the beginning of
+a street.
+
+Olga stood still and looked at Myra with a smile. “Well,” she said, “are
+you shivering already? What would you give now to be safe at home under
+a down-comfortable, with the electric light to turn on whenever you want
+it?”
+
+“Nothing at all!” said Myra defiantly. “On the contrary, I think it’s
+extremely pleasant right here. And if we don’t find any accommodations,
+I shall mind it for your sake only. It was I who led you into this
+excursion!”
+
+“Oh, for all I care,” said Olga deprecatingly, “for all I care, we can
+spend the night on those benches in the station. But if you’re afraid,
+we can go back and ask the man at the guard-gates if there’s a hotel.”
+
+“No,” Myra insisted, “don’t ask. Let’s go on.”
+
+A few hundred paces ahead of them, the houses began. Dark and sleeping
+or with an occasional lighted window. They stood rather apart,
+surrounded by their gardens and fields. The road was paved with cobbles.
+Presently the houses stood closer together, began to form a street which
+was illuminated by flickering lanterns.
+
+The street broadened to a kind of market-place. It was a dreary polygon,
+without any artistic embellishments, lime-trees, or a purling spring. On
+one side, was a long, squat, gray box with a broad roof, sloping low,
+and several dormer-windows. Over the broad arch of the dark entrance a
+tin star was swaying, not unlike a shaving-basin, while a big blue
+lantern, swinging from a beautifully curved arm, illuminated the words:
+“At the Sign of the Blue Star. Hotel and stable accommodations.”
+
+“Look,” said Olga, “even a hotel!”
+
+They looked for a night-bell. But they could not find even a door.
+Beside the entrance-way was a handle for ringing a big bell at the end
+of a rusty iron rod. But it was difficult to reach. Myra made an
+attempt.
+
+“Don’t bother,” said Olga, “that’s not for poor pedestrians like us.
+Moreover, we’ll wake up the whole town. Let’s try inside instead.”
+
+They ventured into the dark cavern of the entrance, but did not get far.
+Before the passage could open into a court, a huge rack-wagon barred the
+way. But beside the wagon they found a flight of steps and a little
+wooden door in the wall. They felt a metal knob, tugged at it and
+succeeded in evoking a shrill ring that made them start, so
+hair-raisingly did it shatter the silence.
+
+Steps, voices, a light.
+
+A sleepy-looking individual appeared in the doorway, slippers on his
+bare feet, in grayish-yellow underwear, over which he had managed in
+some remarkable fashion to pull on a jacket that he held closed under
+his chin with his left hand. In his upraised right he carried a wax
+candle.
+
+Olga took over the management of negotiations.
+
+She told the sleep-drunk man a long tale of the train by which they had
+just arrived, and of how the “Blue Star” had had been recommended to
+her, and how she regretted having had to disturb his slumbers, but the
+trains arrived at such uncomfortable hours, and they couldn’t remain on
+the streets, and, of course, the people at the station had directed them
+here.
+
+The man rallied sufficiently to say, “One moment, please!” vanished and
+left them standing there.
+
+They looked at one another and laughed, waiting patiently. After some
+time a gas-lamp without a globe was lighted farther up the stairs, and
+the man reappeared, this time in black trousers.
+
+The fact that he was collarless and wore neither a jacket nor stockings
+did not prevent a certain deftness of his movements from revealing at
+once that he was “mine host.”
+
+He conducted them into a big, dark, cold room, jumped up on the cushion
+of a chair and lit the gas-jet. It was evidently the “Blue Star’s”
+“imperial suite.”
+
+The high, broad bed, the ponderous plush sofa almost vanished in the
+vast room. Between the windows stood a huge, gold-framed mirror before
+which, on the console, were wax flowers under glass, while the walls
+were elegant with numerous gay prints, most of them in heavy gold
+frames.
+
+“Mine host” stooped and lit a gas-heater. A long row of little pointed
+blue flames puffed up, were mirrored in a reflector of grooved copper
+that cast a warm and ruddy glow on the shabby carpet.
+
+“Splendid!” said Olga, tossing her gloves on the big, round,
+plush-covered table. “Now it will be warm here, too. That’s simply
+ideal! No, sir, we don’t need another thing. We should like to have
+breakfast here in the morning. Is this the bell—splendid! Thank you!
+Good night!”
+
+The door closed behind him.
+
+“Wonderful!” said Olga, including it all in a wide embrace.
+
+“Are you serious?” asked Myra timidly. “I was afraid your sense of
+beauty would be in constant agony! Those pictures! And those artificial
+flowers, and the plush-upholstery!”
+
+“Simply splendid!” said Olga. “It just couldn’t be any different. I’d
+have been terribly disappointed if those fighting stags were not here,
+or that wonderful Empire maiden with the apple-tree in bloom. Do you
+think I want to see Chippendale furniture or a Kokoschka in the ‘Blue
+Star’? God forbid! As it is, I think it’s simply heavenly!”
+
+Myra unpacked her suitcase, spread night-gowns on the bed, set bottles
+and boxes on the wash-table. Olga walked about noiselessly, whistling
+with soft, sweet flute-tones. She stopped before each picture, studying
+it with childish enthusiasm, while she made up long stories about it.
+
+“Here!” said Myra, laying her silk kimono on the chair, “you can put
+that on.”
+
+“And you?”
+
+“I have my wrapper, that’s all right for me.”
+
+“Wonderful,” she said, “simply wonderful! Now all I need is warm feet.
+Then I’ll be absolutely happy.”
+
+She rolled a chair up to the gas-heater and began to untie her shoes.
+
+“Shall I help you?” asked Myra, eager to serve.
+
+“I never heard of such a thing!” said Olga provoked. “Why, I wouldn’t
+let my maid do such a thing for me!”
+
+“That’s another matter,” said Myra, smiling. “It’s a distinction that
+one does not confer on maids.”
+
+“You’re certainly insane!” Again that sudden deep crimson pulsed into
+Olga’s cheeks.
+
+She had drawn off her thin silk stockings and was holding her bare feet
+toward the flame. She raised her arms and slowly ran Myra’s brush over
+the hair that fell in heavy black curls about her neck.
+
+Myra jumped on the chair and turned out the gas-light.
+
+“Now,” she said with a laugh, “you can have a painting made of yourself,
+or a chromo and frame it in gold and hang it on the walls here. Title:
+_Au coin du feu_, or The Witch, or Firelight, or something just as good.
+How can anybody be so shamelessly lovely?”
+
+“Indeed!” said Olga dryly. “Now you’ve done it! We haven’t any matches!”
+
+“In the first place, there’s light enough for me,” said Myra, seating
+herself on the floor in the ruddy firelight. “And in the second place,
+we can always light a spill from this. If we can’t find anything better,
+we’ll use a hundred mark note. We have plenty of them. Child, what a
+marvellous foot you have! But so cold, they’re always like ice!”
+
+She clasped both hands about Olga’s foot. It was as nobly shaped, as
+beautiful in line and color as if a masterhand had chiselled it out of
+marble. But it was as heavy and as cold as stone.
+
+Myra endeavored to warm it in her hands, but then she could not resist
+temptation—she set her lips upon its cool, smooth, white skin.
+
+Olga broke away, sprang up and ran through the dark room to the window.
+
+“Olga!” cried Myra, terrified, and rose, hesitantly. “What is the
+matter? What’s wrong with you?”
+
+No answer. Myra went over to her. But when she reached the window and
+stretched out her hand toward her, Olga dodged as if hunted, along the
+wall.
+
+She stood, cowering, in a corner, Myra barring her way.
+
+Her lovely pale face gleamed weirdly in the dark. Her tense features
+were at once frightened and threatening, like a wounded animal’s, that
+sees itself surrounded and prepares to defend itself desperately.
+
+Myra shrank from the expression of those compressed lips, those darkly
+glowing eyes. Timidly she laid her hand on Olga’s arms, which were
+folded across her breast.
+
+Olga started and cowered deeper in her corner.
+
+“Go away!” she said through clenched teeth. “Let me be!”
+
+“You must not stand in your bare feet on the bare floor,” said Myra on
+the verge of tears. “You’ll catch your death of cold. I don’t want you
+to do anything but sit by the heater. I can sleep in the hall, in front
+of the door, or I can take another room, or I can jump out the window.
+But come out of that corner, I can’t bear to look at you a minute
+longer!”
+
+She seized her by both shoulders, but Olga shook her off.
+
+“Let me be!” she said angrily. “Can’t you see that you’re torturing me
+to death? How can anybody be so stupidly cruel?”
+
+Her voice broke and suddenly her face was covered with tears.
+
+Myra could control herself no longer. Her eyes, too, brimmed over.
+
+“I don’t understand!” she said with quivering lips. “If I’m so hateful
+to you that you can’t stand me, what are you here for? Why do you have
+anything to do with me? No one can like a person whose presence is a
+torture to him. But I know why you can’t stand me!”
+
+“Why?” asked Olga astonished.
+
+Myra shook her head in silence, still struggling with her tears.
+
+“Why can’t I stand you?” Olga demanded more urgently. “Answer me! I want
+to know!”
+
+Myra still avoided looking at her. “Because I love you too much!” she
+said bitterly and sadly. “It must be dreadful to be loved by someone
+whom you do not love! Almost disgusting!”
+
+“Idiot!” said Olga and stroked Myra’s hair very tenderly.
+
+“Oh, don’t,” said Myra and disengaged herself from the hand. “There’s no
+use forcing one’s self.”
+
+Olga let her arms drop heavily.
+
+“One must force one’s self,” she said, breathing softly but with an
+effort. “If I did not force myself, I would so smother you with caresses
+that you’d be frightened to death and run away.”
+
+Myra felt the pulse throbbing in her neck so that she could scarcely
+breathe.
+
+“Don’t do it,” she said. “Though I would certainly never run away, I
+might go mad with happiness!”
+
+Then Olga slowly raised both her slender white arms and laid them on
+Myra’s shoulders. Myra felt their powerful, delicious pressure grow
+tenser and tenser.
+
+Since Olga was barefoot, their faces were almost on a level. Their eyes
+bored into one another, gravely, unflinchingly, while they felt in every
+vein the terrible throbbing of their hearts.
+
+Then they bent toward one another, like two thirsting souls, and laid
+mouth upon mouth.
+
+They did not release one another again. They kissed one another more and
+more covetously. They walked through the room, nestling close together,
+they sat on the edge of the bed in one another’s arms. Their clothes
+slipped off and lay on the floor.
+
+The coarse, damp sheets exhaled a chill miasma. They hardly felt it, so
+hot was the blood in their youthful bodies.
+
+They pressed upon one another as if they wanted to pass one into the
+other, to be merged, be one.
+
+Their slender, supple limbs wove one into the other, as the trees of a
+virgin forest inextricably interpenetrate.
+
+They did not speak. But like a murmuring music, they heard the droning
+pulse of one another’s hearts, and the breath that came quicker and
+quicker.
+
+Their bodies seized each other as wild beasts seize and shake the bars
+of their cages. They buried their nails in one another’s flesh, their
+teeth in their tensed muscles.
+
+Then they lay nestling one against the other like children tired with
+play, while their lips brushed eyelids and cheeks as gently, as softly,
+as a butterfly a swaying flower.
+
+“Little one!” said Olga, and all the bells pealed in her voice. “My
+beautiful, my good one!”
+
+“My dear,” said Myra. “Oh you miracle of heaven! What are you really?
+Are you a wild creature? Or a god? Or the spirit of a white orchid?”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Olga. “I believe I am a god. But an hour ago I was
+a poor tortured creature. Are you not proud, little girl, to be able to
+work such miracles?”
+
+“I wish I could work miracles,” said Myra longingly.
+
+Olga laughed a hard laugh. “Then you’d change me into a man!” she said.
+
+“God forbid!” cried Myra, clasping her in both arms. “Never! Never!
+Never! But if I could work miracles, I’d never let this night end. I
+would make it last forever!”
+
+The red glow of the copper behind the gas flame filled the room with a
+warm light. The little pointed flames trembled gently, and the bright
+spot on the worn gay carpet trembled, too.
+
+Olga leaned on her elbows, supporting her head in her hands. Between her
+white fingers her black curls peeped. In her pale face, her clear dark
+eyes glowed in infinite majesty and clarity, like twin stars.
+
+“Forever!” she said softly. “Everything that is God, is eternal! Do you
+not feel that this night belongs to God? Time is an invention of the
+Devil. Satan invented the passage of time in order to make man apostate
+to God. But God remains eternal. Satan invented much else, besides,
+sickness, pain, vermin and money. Above all—money! But time came and the
+passage of time, and could never be dispelled again. Now they are a part
+of every invention of the Devil. But what is God’s is eternal. New
+happiness always effaces old pain as if it had never been. And happiness
+endures. No pain can efface it. I would die of shame if I thought that
+only the nerve-endings in our skin vibrate. Don’t you feel that
+something has happened to your soul that must remain with it beyond all
+death? Don’t you feel that this hour has changed you beyond any power of
+death to change?”
+
+“Yes,” said Myra. “And more than any birth. I was born today—not twenty
+years ago. Now I can say to myself for the first time consciously: ‘I
+live!’”
+
+“_We_ live!” said Olga, clasping her to her, with an exultation in her
+voice that was like the jubilant cry of a wild bird rising in flight.
+
+“We live, sweetheart! Forever, and ever, and ever, we live!”
+
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+
+
+When Myra awoke the next morning, she found a bright, cheerful, winter
+sunshine in the room. Her first thought was of Olga. She was not there.
+Her coat, too, was gone from its hook. Myra felt a sudden pang of
+terror. Olga was gone, forever, would not return, was lost,
+irretrievably lost.
+
+Myra sprang out of bed, suddenly wide awake.
+
+Then she saw Olga’s hat and gloves. She picked up the gloves and stroked
+them, pressing them against her cheek. A sense of joy and tranquillity
+seemed to emanate from the soft gray leather. So it was no dream, no
+witchery: Olga had really been there, Olga would return. The gloves
+retained the shape of her beautiful slender hands, were still filled
+with their life....
+
+From below came a familiar grinding and scraping sound.
+
+Myra ran in her bare feet to the window and drew the heavy white twill
+curtain a little to one side. On the window-ledge lay a thick cushion of
+white snow. The houses below all had roofs of dazzling white, while
+above, flashed a sky of the purest blue.
+
+In front of the hotel, the servant of the house was scraping a dark path
+with his shovel through the white carpet. Beside him stood Olga, her
+coat open, both hands plunged in its pockets, her head thrust somewhat
+forward in the intentness of her conversation with the old man.
+
+Myra gazed down for a while, delighting in every line of Olga’s figure.
+She watched her speak, seeming to hear the intonations of her voice. She
+wondered what she could find to talk about with the servant. She admired
+her talent for embarking on conversations with all kinds of people, and
+giving each just the proper tone.
+
+Myra knew that talent of hers. If Olga were in the mood, she could make
+the grouchiest waiter or conductor beam at her.
+
+After a few moments Olga suddenly glanced up: she must have felt Myra’s
+gaze. She saw her standing at the window, or perhaps only the trembling
+curtain. She waved and ran into the house.
+
+Olga brought a breath of cool snowy air into the room. Her eyes were as
+clear and as transparent as ice, while a very faint rosy flush mantled
+her cheeks.
+
+“Where have you been, you gad-about?” asked Myra.
+
+“Have a nice long sleep, my wench?” Olga inquired by way of reply. “I’ve
+been walking. I was in town. I wanted to get some flowers for your
+breakfast table. But flowers in winter—such sinful things are unheard of
+here! But there’s a bake-shop below, one of those with steps and a
+railing in front of the door. You know the kind? And a gold pretzel up
+above! And it smells of fresh bread. Hurry up, I’ve got a ravening
+appetite.”
+
+They breakfasted in their room. Then Myra urged that they go walking.
+Snow and sunshine beckoned them out.
+
+“First you must write to your father,” said Olga seriously.
+
+“Yes,” said Myra, making a face. “You don’t want to accept any
+responsibility—I know without your saying it.”
+
+She sat down and wrote a long, well-considered letter. She described the
+incidents at Uncle George’s with much humor. She told where she was
+stopping, earnestly begged her father to let her remain where she felt
+happy and was in no one’s way. She begged him, too, to believe that she
+was a mature and intelligent person and knew exactly what was best for
+her. And she begged him to pay back the money which she had unwillingly
+borrowed from Uncle George—and to support her for the short period until
+she came of age, or else to give her an advance against her
+grandmother’s legacy.
+
+But of the fact that she was not alone, she did not write him a word.
+
+They took the letter together to be mailed. Olga already knew the way.
+When the letter had dropped into the blue box, she breathed more freely,
+and took Myra’s arm.
+
+“Come,” she said, “what had to be done, is done. In three days you may
+get an answer. But let us enjoy those three days.”
+
+“Do you suppose,” said Myra, glowering, “that any power on earth could
+compel me to return home? If they won’t send me money, I’ll hire out to
+do washing or sewing, or I’ll run up debts.”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Olga, “I only know that as long as that letter is
+on its way we are safe. No living soul knows where we are—that’s a
+glorious feeling—as if one were safe behind walls and moats. But once
+that letter arrives, the drawbridge will be lowered. What will happen
+then, I do not know. I know nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing! But it’s
+always possible that we’ll be torn into little pieces!”
+
+“Then why did we lower the draw-bridge?” asked Myra, stopping short.
+“Why did you force me to write?”
+
+Olga smiled rather gloomily. “Because I will _not_ accept
+responsibility!” she said, making an effort to jest.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+They walked along the broad streets with the little low houses. The
+show-windows were strangely fascinating.
+
+As they entered the woods, it was suddenly still and warm about them—so
+warm that their faces, lashed by the wind, began to burn.
+
+In the branches, high above them, the wind murmured, now and again
+shaking down a silvery star to the dark ground. But they did not feel
+the cold rush of its fall.
+
+They wandered plunged in silence. Only when gay titmice flitted past, or
+a squirrel dashed up a tree trunk, did they indicate it to one another
+by a gesture, a whisper. And when their glances met, they remained fixed
+on one another till they smiled and closed their eyes.
+
+“Aha, there it is!” said Olga at last.
+
+“What? Where?” asked Myra in surprise.
+
+Olga pointed ahead. A red brick wall was suddenly visible between the
+tree trunks.
+
+“Did you know all the time where we were going?” Myra was filled with
+wonder.
+
+“Of course, child! I would not lead you through here at random. By all
+human computations, this should be the wild-cat’s lair. In summer
+there’s coffee, music and dancing here. In winter we may get a bite to
+eat—if we’re lucky. The servant at the hotel told me all about it this
+morning. Such a lovely story about a haunted mill where there are only a
+donkey, a cat and a dove. And one other animal. Look, there goes the
+dove, and there’s the cat. But not a soul to be seen. Are you
+frightened, Myra? Wait and see, the cat will say something to us.”
+
+They crossed a kind of inn courtyard and shook a couple of locked doors.
+
+“They can’t have died,” said Olga, pointing to the wisp of smoke that
+arose from the chimney. “Or perhaps the cat made the fire. But if she
+can do that, she can also cook us something to eat.”
+
+They found one door open. Through a cold and empty hall, from the
+ceiling of which hung strips of torn and dusty paper, they reached
+another door that gave when they lifted the latch. The room they next
+entered was filled with a comfortable warmth and a penetrating smell of
+cabbage. An iron stove was giving off a glowing heat while on top a blue
+enamel pot was bubbling and steaming. At one of the tables a big-boned
+maid was sitting sprawled, eating her mess of cabbage with her knife.
+
+“Good day, Anna,” said Olga, beaming affably. “Well, how goes it? Does
+it taste good?”
+
+The girl rose slowly, grinning. “I’m not Anna,” she said. “The girl
+before me was Anna. I’m Bertha.”
+
+“It’s lovely and warm in here, Bertha.” Olga drew off her gloves and
+spread her fingers before the fire. “And it smells wonderfully of
+cabbage! Will you give us a little of your lunch?”
+
+“If the ladies would like something to eat, I’ll ask the mistress.”
+
+The black and white spotted cat stole into the room.
+
+“There’s the wild-cat!” said Olga. “Come here, Mies! Come to me!”
+
+The cat let her pick him up and hold him. Olga stroked him and pressed
+him to her while she talked to him in a whisper, asking sympathetic
+questions.
+
+“Strange, that you like cats so much and can’t bear dogs,” said Myra a
+little disapprovingly. “It’s certainly typical of you!”
+
+Olga raised her head quickly and her brows were lifted. “In what way is
+it typical?”
+
+“Because you set more value on grace than on faithfulness,” said Myra
+with a melancholy smile. “Because you love what scratches you
+unexpectedly more than what lets itself be whipped and then licks your
+hand. I guess I’ll have to take care that you don’t grow to despise me.”
+
+Olga pushed the cat off her lap. “No, Myra,” she said, her big eyes
+grave, “there you misunderstand me completely. I have an antipathy to
+dogs, not because they are faithful, but because they are shameless.
+Because they carry on their love affairs on the street.” Again that
+crimson flush overspread her features. “Cats are more cultured about
+such things—if I may use that much misused word. There are insects that
+mate only in the darkest nights, in the most forsaken corners, so that
+no forester has ever succeeded in observing them. I’ve always held that
+there will come a time when we will speak of the barbarous practices of
+this century, or the last ten centuries, as if they were a fairy-tale.
+Just think how tremendously funny it must strike any sensitive person
+when two people, having conceived a certain desire to go to bed with one
+another, set a special date for the event. They inform certain public
+institutions, the State, the Church. They tell their friends and
+relations, their own parents, their own brothers and sisters. On the day
+which is to end in that night, they gather everybody they know about
+them, let themselves be observed by persons who stuff themselves and
+drink until they are sick, listen to suggestive songs and suggestive
+speeches—and yet do not get sick themselves. I’ve always had a feeling
+that marriage as it is practiced today would be fit punishment for a
+hardened criminal. It is such a cruel, such an exquisite torture. Myra,
+my child, oblige me and if you ever decide to marry, do it when you
+desire and not on some appointed day. Do it in utter secrecy so that no
+living soul can suspect the possibility of such a thing....”
+
+“I?” cried Myra, her eyes filled with the horror of a shattered dream.
+“I?”
+
+“Yes, you!” said Olga, smiling. “Ah, my child, do you fancy that you
+even begin to suspect all the things that can still happen in your
+life?”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day they went to see if there was a letter. Olga was relieved
+to find none.
+
+“This blessed postal service,” she said. “The mail comes here only once
+a day.”
+
+Myra shook her head. “I don’t understand you. I shan’t really be able to
+rest until the answer comes. Until then we’re always on the _qui vive_,
+sitting on a volcano or some such thing. Once we know where we’re at,
+then we can arrange matters. Eventually, I’ll have to write to the
+attorney who is my grandmother’s executor. He will surely advance me
+some money on which we can live for the six months until I’m of age. But
+I wish I were finished with all these things.”
+
+Olga played with the fringe of the table-cloth and smiled.
+
+“Why do you keep smiling?” asked Myra.
+
+“Because you make such elaborate plans. Your father will write, Come,
+and you will go.”
+
+“You know very well that that is impossible,” said Myra almost angrily.
+
+Olga rose with a shrug of her shoulders and walked to the window.
+
+“Perhaps I will send you!” she said in a hard voice.
+
+That afternoon they took another long walk across the fields. The early
+nightfall surprised them, and they did not reach the hotel until dark.
+
+They trudged along the highway, struggling hard against the wind, and
+saw the lights of the town beginning to twinkle in the blue dusk.
+
+“Strange,” said Olga, “we’re going home. There is a town ahead of us
+whose name I had never heard of three days ago. And yet it is home to
+me. There is a hotel room in which some salesman may have slept three
+days ago, a room in which there is not a picture, not a book to attract
+me—and yet I call it home. When I think of our gas-heater and its
+reflection of the worn carpet, I feel so warm that I scarcely notice the
+wind. How happy a person must be who really has her own home, and loves
+each chair and the color of the carpet and the light of the lamp and
+each picture and each cup.”
+
+“You could have that,” said Myra.
+
+“I? Never! Never! Never!”
+
+“But you can!” Myra objected somewhat timidly, “if you have the
+patience—in six months.”
+
+Olga laughed abruptly. “Child!” she cried and hugged Myra’s arm tighter.
+“My dear, sweet, wonderful little creature! In six months! Where will
+you be then, and where will I? You will be married perhaps, and I—dead.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+As they entered the room, something white was lying upon the dark
+table-cover. Myra seized it and ran to the window. The lantern outside
+shed a faint light.
+
+It was an urgent telegram. “Turn on the light, please,” she asked in a
+rather shaky voice. She tore the message out of the envelope, and read
+it in the dusk by the window. She read it again by the bright gas light.
+It was no different:
+
+“Your father has suffered a stroke. End expected hourly.”
+
+Without a word, Myra handed the open telegram to Olga, and walked past
+her to the heater. She held her hands in front of the flame, and was
+filled with the strangely painful sensation of not knowing how she ought
+to behave.
+
+For no feeling welled up irresistibly from the depths of her being,
+darkening every thought—neither grief nor fear, nor yet love. Only ugly,
+painful thoughts: “Now I’ll have to go away and arrive too late anyhow.
+So that it’s quite useless for me to go at all. If he really is going to
+die, why couldn’t I have just received word that he’s dead, instead?
+Then no power on earth could drag me away from here.”
+
+She cast a stealthy glance at Olga whose back was still toward her.
+“She’ll wait for me to do something,” she thought. “I’ll have to say
+something or other. I suppose the most natural thing for me to do would
+be to cry. But I simply can’t. Of course, I think it’s dreadful. But
+it’s nothing to weep about. What would Olga do in my place? Strange, how
+little we actually know of one another! I don’t know what she would do.
+And I don’t know what she expects me to do.”
+
+At last Olga turned, laying the paper on the table with a beautiful and
+extraordinarily discreet gesture. Her face was calm, but very pale.
+
+“I’ll go ask about the trains,” she said and went out quietly.
+
+Myra was glad to be left alone for a moment. She could now consider in
+quiet what was to be done. If Olga were going to inquire about the
+trains, she must accept it as a foregone conclusion that Myra would
+leave at once for home. And it probably was a foregone conclusion: of
+course, it was.
+
+She rose with a sigh from her easy-chair by the fire, opened her
+suitcase and began to pack. Meanwhile her thoughts kept flying hither
+and thither.
+
+Perhaps it was not true!
+
+Perhaps Aunt Emily had thought it up to lure her back home! To shut her
+up in prison!
+
+If only a telegram would come from her father, denying the first.
+
+Or supposing it were true, if only a telegram would come from Aunt Emily
+saying that all was over! Then she would not have to go. Or would Olga
+demand that she go?
+
+If only Olga would come back now and say, “There is no train, not today,
+not tomorrow, not ever. The trains, are snow bound. Or there’s been a
+wash-out.”
+
+Or if Olga would return and say, “Don’t go! Don’t leave me! Let us go
+somewhere else, anywhere they can’t find us. Prove to me how much you
+love me: give up everything for me! What is that strange dead man to
+you? Nothing! You belong to me, are mine! I demand of you that you
+remain with me. I don’t want to be parted from you, not for a single
+hour.”
+
+Yes, that would be the most beautiful way, but of all impossible things,
+the most impossible.
+
+Olga opened the door. Her movements, though quick, were as gentle as if
+she were entering a sick-room.
+
+“At nine forty-five,” she said and glanced at her wrist-watch. “So we
+have plenty of time to pack and eat a bite.”
+
+Myra felt a twinge of something like resentment. She _had to_ go. She
+was simply being sent. Would Olga have gone in her place? Olga acted
+freely and flew in the face of everything that was considered
+convention. But Myra must be bound by what was normal, commonplace,
+proper. The train left at nine forty-five—she was not even asked if she
+wanted to take it. It was the next train, therefore she was to go on it.
+
+She continued to pack her suitcase, with a sullen expression.
+
+“Can I help you?” asked Olga gravely and gently.
+
+“Thanks, no!” said Myra curtly.
+
+Olga’s compassionate tone tormented her. She would have liked so much to
+speak the brutal truth: “You don’t need to treat me as if I were an
+invalid. The worst of this business for me is that we have to part, that
+I have to go away from here, that our fairy-tale life here must end.”
+But she did not possess the courage to say so. Yet she felt that Olga
+was withdrawing herself almost timidly, as if she had no right to
+disturb Myra in her sacred, childish grief.
+
+In packing, Myra’s hand accidentally touched something carefully wrapped
+in tissue paper on the bottom of the suitcase. She tore off the
+wrapping, so that the shreds fluttered to the floor and held the gold
+cigarette-case in her hand.
+
+“Oh, Myra!” cried Olga with a soft exclamation of surprise. “There it is
+again! How long has it been there?”
+
+“It has never been anywhere else,” said Myra with a rather strained
+smile. “I could never bring myself to give it into a stranger’s dirty
+hands. I really did not want to say anything about it to you. I intended
+to send it to you at Christmas. But that’s all silliness, I’d rather
+give it to you now.”
+
+Myra walked over and placed it in Olga’s hands.
+
+Olga held the case very quietly on her fingers without closing them over
+it while she regarded it with a profoundly thoughtful smile.
+
+“Strange,” she said without raising her eyes. “Why now? Why today? One
+must not be superstitious, but sometimes it is hard....”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+At home there was the odor of sickness and death. The maids sat about
+drunk with sleep, with swollen eyes and stupid faces.
+
+Everywhere there were lights burning. Not bright, cheerful, radiant
+lights, but individual lamps casting a faint glow in one or two rooms.
+The doors stood open or ajar so that one could see that it was not night
+in this house, that no one was sleeping, that people were constantly
+hurrying to and fro. And through the open doors, too, came the
+monotonous rattling in the throat of the dying man. It filled all the
+rooms.
+
+Her owlish eyes wide open in her puckered face, Aunt Emily flitted about
+like a spook.
+
+“You come too late!” she said with icy triumph as she confronted Myra.
+“There is no more hope.”
+
+Myra felt as if something dreadful ought to happen to her, and the
+sudden consciousness of being so depraved, so unfeeling that nothing
+could happen to her, that even this woman’s immeasurable hate implied
+too high an opinion of her, brought the tears to her eyes, for she was
+tired and over-excited.
+
+Aunt Emily, of course, could not divine these thoughts.
+
+“Your tears are too late, too!” she said meanly.
+
+Each of the twenty hours that followed had a thousand minutes. Myra
+paced to and fro, or sat now in one chair, now in another. Everywhere
+she felt out of place, in the way, and observed by evil eyes.
+
+She was worn out in every limb and felt the need, if only for an hour,
+to lock herself into her room and throw herself on her bed. But she
+lacked the courage.
+
+She knew they expected her to stand flooding repentant tears or to sit
+by her father’s death bed, or better yet, to kneel. She endeavored to
+control the horror that from time to time shook her, and went in. The
+heavy air smelt of decomposition and medicines. Among the many white
+pillows lay a small, strangely bony skull with closed eyes, an alien,
+distorted mask, whose yellowish lips moved gently as it gasped.
+
+Myra sat for a while beside the bed, terrified lest that dreadful rattle
+in the throat should cease suddenly; terrified still more lest that
+strange something should suddenly open its eyes and begin speaking.
+
+Doctors entered, conferred in whispers, bestowed sympathetic glances on
+her, and went out again.
+
+The maid spread the table at the usual time and urged her to eat
+something. Aunt Emily left all the connecting-doors open, listening
+intently while she spooned her soup, for any change in that monotonously
+rattling throat.
+
+It was all Myra could do to choke down a bite.
+
+The twilight set in early and again the lamps were lit.
+
+Myra picked up a book, but encountered so furious a glance from Aunt
+Emily that she laid it down again, and folded her hands spiritlessly in
+her lap.
+
+Toward evening the rattlings grew feebler. The bridge of the nose stood
+out sharply against the tiny shrunken face. The doctor who came at night
+did not go away again. Now there was one more to sit in silence or pace
+noiselessly to and fro across the thick carpets—waiting.
+
+The rattlings grew more and more feeble. Then a louder, grating
+expiration of the breath, twice, with short pauses. Then
+suddenly—silence.
+
+And suddenly, too, as if it had just begun, they heard the ticking of
+every clock in the house.
+
+The doctor bent over the bed, then drew himself up and walked over to
+Myra to give her his hand. Aunt Emily dabbed her dry eyes and the maids
+outside sobbed.
+
+Myra saw and heard it all as if through a dense veil; she was afraid of
+fainting.
+
+The doctor probably observed her greenish, livid appearance, and laid
+his hand on her hair. “Go lie down, my child,” he said gently. “You can
+be of no further use here. You have sad days behind you and before you.
+Youth needs sleep.”
+
+Myra was glad to be in her room. But she did not think of lying down.
+When, after an interval, she heard the doctor go a nameless dread seized
+on her. She was so tired and yet so afraid to sleep lest horrible dreams
+torment her once she relaxed control of her thoughts.
+
+If her heavy eyelids shut for a moment, she saw the dying man’s
+distorted features, or Aunt Emily trying to seize her with her claws to
+strangle her, or Uncle George raising his arm to strike her with an
+enormous bunch of keys that would crush her aching head.
+
+Myra reached out longingly for another hand that would clasp hers warmly
+and firmly. But her cold fingers remained empty. Finally, she could not
+endure her terrors any longer. Slipping into her coat, she stole down
+the rear stairs and out of the house.
+
+The cold night air awoke her from her trance. She ran, rather than
+walked, through the streets to Olga’s house. The house was locked. Myra
+stood for a while undecided. Perhaps someone who lived there would be
+coming home late, or the watchman would unlock the door for her for a
+tip.
+
+She waited a long time. She was shivering with cold. At last she woke up
+the doorman. But at the top of the first stairs, she hesitated again
+before she dared ring.
+
+She sat down on the steps and laid her forehead against the wooden
+door-jamb. She endeavored to awaken Olga, to summon her by thinking
+intensely of her, by ardent entreaty, by fierce willing. From time to
+time she thought she heard her light step approaching the door and she
+listened breathlessly, only to perceive that she was mistaken.
+
+At last she had to make up her mind to ring. It was a long time before a
+very sleepy, half-dressed girl opened the door. She told some tale of
+having just come from the train and of being unable to go home because
+she had left her key with Miss Radó. She laughed as she was saying it
+and had a feeling that the girl thought her positively demented.
+
+She groped her way along the familiar hall, fearing, for some
+incomprehensible reason, to strike a light. Perhaps she was afraid that
+the noise or the illumination would wake someone, or perhaps she had
+some unconscious dread of being seen, and felt herself safer in the
+dark.
+
+As she stood in front of Olga’s door she felt suddenly, and with a
+painful intensity so strong that she thought it must be premonition,
+that Olga was not alone—that this horrible day was to have a still more
+horrible close.
+
+She leaned against the wall, not daring to knock or to lift the latch. A
+voice, which she seemed to hear speaking distinctly outside her, said,
+“What are you seeking here? What right have you to force your way in
+here? Where did you acquire the boundless audacity to feel at home
+here?”
+
+The door opened noiselessly and a feeble ray of light appeared. In its
+glow stood Olga Radó, tall and slender in a varicolored dark kimono, one
+hand on the latch, peering sharply from under her knitted brows. She saw
+and recognized Myra at once.
+
+“Myra!” she exclaimed softly, and closed her eyes a moment as if
+frightened. “I knew it! What has happened, child? How did you get up
+here?”
+
+Myra did not walk, she staggered. She went into the room, looking at the
+soft light of the shaded lamp on the papers, on the desk, on the backs
+of the books, on the silk cushions. Colors and shapes were a marvellous
+exhilaration. She let herself slide to the floor, laying her head
+against the easy-chair, and saying between tears and a laugh, between
+waking and sleeping, “Let me stay here, it is so good!”
+
+Olga raised her, undressed her like a little child and laid her in the
+bed. As the cold sheets touched her body, horror set her trembling
+again. Once more she was wide awake, and sat bolt upright in the bed,
+striving to control the chattering of her teeth.
+
+“Lie beside me,” she pleaded, “I must feel that I’m not alone. I’m so
+dreadfully frightened.”
+
+Olga did not answer. She bolted the door, she set the lamp behind the
+bed, spread another silken veil over the light and let the kimono fall
+from her shoulders—all with a sad smile and slow, languid movements as
+if she were preparing for a sacrifice. Then she put her arm under Myra’s
+neck, tucked the coverlet more tightly around her and stroked the
+tangled hair from her forehead.
+
+And as Myra felt the warmth of that beloved life, the strong pulse of
+that heart, she began to weep, quietly, released from pain. She cried
+herself to sleep.
+
+After an interval, she did not know if it were hours or minutes, she
+awoke again. The light was still burning. Olga lay motionless beside
+her, her eyes wide open. Myra sat up and released her arm.
+
+“Why didn’t you wake me?” she said reproachfully. “Poor thing, I must
+have broken your arm, that’s why you can’t sleep.”
+
+Olga turned her head a little. “I should not have slept anyway. I’m so
+wide awake.”
+
+“What were you thinking of?” asked Myra, trying to fathom her eyes.
+
+Olga smiled a little wearily.
+
+“I was thinking that your people are probably searching the whole house
+by now. I should like to know, or better, I’d rather not know, what is
+going on in Aunt Emily’s head at this moment. She certainly must think
+you’ve been bitten by a tarantula!”
+
+Myra laughed softly and put her arm around Olga.
+
+“By a scorpion!” she said tenderly. “There is no antidote but its own
+poison. You know that very well.”
+
+Olga sat up and clasped her hands about her knees. Her glossy black
+curls fell luxuriantly about her shoulders. Her eyes gazed straight
+ahead and her wide pupils darkened the irises.
+
+“What a strange fate!” she said in a vibrant tone as soft and deep as a
+cello’s. “That I must be stung by the scorpion and yet look for healing
+to the same creature.”
+
+Her pale beautiful features assumed an expression of fierce, of
+sorrowful, of almost weird energy.
+
+Myra was so terrified that her heart seemed to miss a beat. She did not
+have the courage to touch Olga, to embrace her.
+
+“Olga!” she cried, in fear and pain, and stretched out her hands to her.
+
+Again that troubled smile played about those pale lips. Olga threw both
+her arms around Myra and clasped her to her as if her embrace must
+smother, must annihilate, must destroy.
+
+“Ah, little Myra!” she said with a little explosive laugh, “it’s all no
+good! You’ll have to let me take the easy road first, then perhaps,
+everything will be all right.”
+
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+
+
+In her sleep Myra heard a violent ringing. Then she woke up: doors were
+slamming, steps approaching, there were many excited voices.
+
+She opened her eyes and saw Olga standing beside the bed, already fully
+dressed. She was very pale, her eyes dark and blazing. “Get up, Myra,”
+she commanded in a voice that was breathless with excitement, “get up
+for God’s sake and dress!”
+
+Myra threw on her things in mad haste. Meanwhile they were pounding on
+the door. Olga immediately went over to it, unbolted and opened it a
+crack.
+
+“Who is there?”
+
+Loud excited voices in the hall: excited faces trying to force
+themselves through the crack.
+
+“I’m sorry, I can’t permit you in my room at this moment,” Olga said
+with icy courtesy.
+
+Some voices began to shout louder than the others, Aunt Emily and Uncle
+George. Also the girl who had admitted Myra that night.
+
+Myra’s hands were trembling as in a nightmare. She could not button her
+dress. She was aware only of a dreadful desire to be invisible or to
+jump out of the window or to sink into some vast unconsciousness.
+
+Olga’s voice rose above the clamor, deep and calm, but as cold and sharp
+as polished steel.
+
+“Does this conversation have to take place in the hall?”
+
+Then suddenly, a soft, gentle voice: “May I offer the use of my room.
+I’ll be glad to step out.”
+
+The voices withdrew next door and a few moments later—Myra had thrown on
+her dress—Peterkin stole into the room.
+
+“Can I help you, Myra?” he whispered. His eyes were troubled.
+
+At the same moment, there came a sound from next door as if a stick had
+been smashed across a table.
+
+“I’ll have you thrown into jail!” thundered Uncle George.
+
+Myra wanted to rush in, but Peterkin restrained her, imploring her not
+to go. “Don’t, don’t!” he begged. “Fix your hair quickly! Put on your
+shoes!” While she smoothed her hair, he knelt before her and buttoned
+her shoes. She let him. She could not dash next door in her
+stocking-feet, with her hair unkempt, to the immense pleasure of all the
+people peeping through the cracks in their doors.
+
+When Myra did go down the hall to the next room, she was quite calm,
+quite erect, and sustained by a strong, brave, hot and almost joyous
+determination.
+
+At the bottom of the hall stood a strange man with his hat and overcoat
+on. He looked her over with a piercing glance.
+
+“Straight from her father’s dead body!” whimpered Aunt Emily with high
+pathos.
+
+“The criminal police in a decent house!” screamed Frau Flesch. “Never in
+all my life have I had anything to do with the police!”
+
+Myra pressed down hard on the latch. Her pulse was throbbing in her
+neck. For an instant the thought flashed through her mind: Perhaps it
+was best that this happened. Perhaps it was a good thing that she must
+now have the courage to take her place beside Olga and say, “I belong to
+her and will never leave her, even if you tear her and me into little
+pieces! If you have the courage and the right, use force on me, for I’ll
+never go one step with you of my own free will.”
+
+Olga was standing, leaning against the table, her arms crossed on her
+breast, the fingers clasping her elbows.
+
+As Myra opened the door, Aunt Emily rushed to her with a choking cry,
+“Here is the unfortunate child!”
+
+Myra stood for an instant as though numbed. For a moment she felt as if
+she were among lunatics or had gone mad herself. With a hasty glance,
+she thought how very becoming to Uncle George were his stern manner, his
+steel-blue eyes and his iron-gray mustache against a face crimson with
+rage.
+
+He came up to her and said in a deep, rough voice that trembled with
+something like emotion, “Myra, my child, what are you doing here? We’re
+burying your poor father tomorrow and you’re here!”
+
+He laid his heavy hand on her shoulder.
+
+Myra did not look at him. She was looking at Olga.
+
+“This is my home,” she said. She meant her voice to sound vibrant and
+firm, but she could not manage it, and it sounded soft and tremulous.
+
+“If you think you have the right, go ahead and use force on me, for I’ll
+never go one step with you of my own free will.”
+
+It was hard, very hard, to say that. Very hard to say it under Uncle
+George’s honest gaze while his face was distorted with rage and sorrow,
+under Aunt Emily’s little blinking bird-eyes, or Frau Flesch’s spongy
+face that seemed fixed in a repulsively avid grin. Hard to say it in
+front of the strange man and the maid, who were listening in the hall.
+
+But now it was said. And now everything would be all right. Now Olga
+would come and take her in her arms, would press Myra’s head against her
+breast so that she need not hear or see anything more, would, with one
+of her haughty and imperious gestures, show all these strange and
+horrible faces the door, would point her revolver at these intruders and
+drive them out with a single word....
+
+Olga turned her head without changing her position, and looked at Myra.
+Everybody thought she was looking at Myra and gave an involuntary start.
+
+But actually her eyes were merely resting on Myra’s forehead, eyebrows
+and hair.
+
+Myra strove to intercept her gaze, but could not. It was fixed on her
+forehead, her eyebrows, her hair—on a line above her eyes.
+
+“My dear child,” said Olga with a gentleness that was icy-cold, “your
+sense of dependence on me is touching, but I have done nothing to merit
+it. If you feel about me as you say, you ought to go with your
+relatives, behave like a rational creature and spare me your visits in
+the future. You must see that they occasion me nothing but
+unpleasantness!”
+
+Myra hesitated for a moment. “Something must happen,” she thought, “she
+must look at me, she must give me some sign, a glance, a gesture, that
+this is all comedy, that I must trust her, believe in her, wait for an
+explanation....”
+
+But nothing did happen.
+
+Myra racked her brain for something terrible with which to shatter that
+stony mask. Could she not say, “You made me come, lured me, forced me
+and now you deny me”? No, she had no right to do that. But could she not
+think of some abusive word, something that would pierce, would wound,
+something cruel?
+
+She turned over various silly childish epithets in her mind: they were
+as heavy as blocks of stone.
+
+“Canaille!” she thought. “Harlot!” That was not what she was seeking. It
+seemed to her as if she must shove the blocks of stone this way and that
+in feverish search for the one sharp word she must fling.
+
+Suddenly, she felt as if she had stood there an endless time, with arms
+hanging, and vacant eyes and open mouth.
+
+She drew herself up and attempted a smile that would be at once proud
+and affable. But she felt as she was doing it, as if madness were
+twitching the distorted muscles of her face.
+
+“Will you telephone for a taxi, Uncle George?” she said. “I am too tired
+to walk.”
+
+She went to the door. “I just want to gather up my things. I won’t be a
+moment.”
+
+She went into the next room, put on her hat before the mirror very
+carefully, threw on her coat and looked for her bag. She did not hurry
+at all. She still had some mad feeling that Olga must steal in and
+whisper something to her—where they could meet, where she should write,
+when she could explain it all to her. But no Olga came.
+
+As Myra opened her bag, she noticed a little wad of tightly pressed
+bills.—What was left from their trip. She took them out, laughing
+bitterly. Probably she would no longer be in any way tempted to steal.
+
+Probably she would never again need money as long as she lived.
+
+She raised her hand and opened it, letting the bills flutter down on the
+disordered bed.
+
+Then she went out, past the strange man, past the maid, downstairs and
+out of the house, without once looking back.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the street she got into the taxi with her relatives.
+
+Uncle George remained for a while in the city. His behavior was really
+curious. He was quiet and kind, and always fixed upon Myra a pair of
+honest, anxious blue eyes, and always spoke to her in a slightly
+emotional tone. But there was never a word about the money or her
+flight.
+
+When Myra pondered this behavior—she did not do so very often—she found
+only one explanation for it. She did not think it might be remorse
+because his vehement letter had occasioned her unhappy father’s death.
+Nor did it ever occur to her that he was striving to win her affection
+through love and kindness. No, probably she was a source of irritation
+to him. But he had seen Olga Radó. Had heard her voice. Had experienced
+something of her power. When Myra thought of that, she almost loved him.
+
+He had heard how Olga denied, betrayed and humiliated her. And he
+sympathized with her. When Myra thought of that, she hated him.
+
+Even Aunt Emily was singularly gentle. Myra thought later that it would
+have been better if they had tormented and wounded her at that time, and
+thereby made her strong through steely hate.
+
+Aunt Emily and the entire family were all for expressing the depth of
+one’s grief by the length of one’s veil. Nobody was going to say that
+Myra, the depraved daughter, the unruly offspring, did not mourn her
+father’s death.
+
+The first time Myra saw herself in a mirror, black crêpe from head to
+toe, slender and pale, with lifeless eyes and a mouth distorted with
+grief, she thought, “Like a widow!” Her heart contracted painfully.
+
+When they drove to the interment, they sat side by side. Aunt Emily’s
+black-gloved right hand held a white handkerchief to her quivering lips;
+her left held Myra’s hand. And Uncle George stared out the window while
+from time to time a tear rolled from his blue eye and into his mustache.
+
+Myra felt as if she had been a mountain: her stony invulnerability had
+turned aside every shot. But now an explosion had torn a crater in her.
+She was hollow inside, a deep, dark, precipitous chasm. The savage wound
+lay exposed to view, and everything fell into it without let or
+hindrance, lay in her like heavy stones, tortured her—everything,
+glances, words, tears, gestures.
+
+“Woe to those who have torn me asunder!” she thought bitterly.
+
+Then her fingers clasped Aunt Emily’s a little tighter for a moment. “We
+belong together,” she thought. “Forsaken, loveless, unhappy people who
+have grown hard and bitter—we belong together. There are two great
+families in this world—the rich and the poor, the sound and the sick,
+the laughers and the weepers.... Olga Radó belongs among the happy: she
+has triumphed, she has justified herself, she has rid herself of me—now
+she can go, laughing, to the next adventure.”
+
+Myra did not always think such thoughts. She was a prey to the most
+conflicting feelings. There were sleepless nights when she thought that
+everything would be all right if only she could hold Olga’s hand and
+ask, “How did you come to do it, child? How could such a thing happen?
+What were you thinking of at the time?”
+
+The next day she would pace up and down Motz Street and stare at the
+house across the way—but always in vain.
+
+Then there were days when Aunt Emily displayed a loathsomely friendly
+sympathy and let fall insinuations concerning the ingratitude of the
+world in general and in particular, and how lonely Myra now was because
+she had given all her affection to such a person.
+
+Then Myra hated them both—Aunt Emily and Olga—with a terrible hatred.
+But she hated Olga the more—Olga who had thrown her down where Aunt
+Emily could trample her, Olga who had torn that wound which Aunt Emily’s
+foul fingers could probe.
+
+Sometimes she resolved to die, but more often to flee, to pack up a
+bundle and run down the highroad, to pass the night in meadows and
+hollows with nothing over her but the eternal starry skies.
+
+At other times, it seemed to her as if that sort of life, particularly
+that sort of life, would be merely a constant torment without Olga—but a
+treasure without end, an inconceivable happiness if only Olga were
+there.
+
+She strove to reconcile herself to the thought that Olga no longer loved
+her. But it was impossible that she actually hated her. She had simply
+sacrificed her, surrendered her without second thought in order to
+shield her reputation, in order to protect herself from
+unpleasantnesses. It is true, she did not love her. That was why her
+words had been lies. She had simply been glad when Myra came. Always.
+And she would be glad again if she returned.
+
+It was becoming clearer and clearer to Myra every day how rich she was.
+Franz Rudloff had been no miser, but there was nothing for which he
+really cared to spend money. And Aunt Emily was much too much of a model
+not to economize, even in the pettiest ways.
+
+Myra had no very clear understanding of money or the value of money. But
+she knew that the sums mentioned to her, guaranteed her freedom,
+promised her that in a few months she could live her life where she
+wished and as she wished.
+
+A life without Olga?
+
+Myra finally resolved to write to Olga. Not how she felt, nothing about
+her longing, her love—God forbid! But a line or two, quite businesslike,
+if one might use the expression—lines whose purpose would simply be to
+bring about an explanation.
+
+With much effort she composed a letter which she amended and improved
+and copied; she felt quite satisfied with her handiwork. No one could
+find in it a trace of affection or humility of any kind.
+
+Rather it was sharp, ironic and somewhat challenging in tone. She mailed
+the letter and awaited the answer. None came.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Aunt Emily decided to inform Myra of the “facts of life.” To
+be sure, she chose a rather remarkable method.
+
+Aunt Emily was too much of a model to discuss morally offensive matters
+with a young girl. Besides, she was probably afraid of Myra’s outbursts
+of temper, though otherwise she was not cowardly.
+
+Myra had fallen into the habit of sitting in her father’s study. She
+would sit and read the whole day through, the most difficult and
+abstruse things, simply in order not to think. Here she had all the
+books within reach. It was more convenient to sit down at the
+writing-table with them, than to lug the sometimes heavy folios into
+another room.
+
+On his desk she now found from time to time pamphlets, brochures,
+apparently of a quite varied character, novels, medical works, daily
+papers with passages underlined—but all treating of one theme.
+
+There were strange and weird stories of countesses who dressed in men’s
+attire and frequented various dives until they were lured into a trap
+and brutally murdered.
+
+Or accounts of sickening orgies in well-known clubs where hundreds of
+women dressed and disported themselves like men, and men were dolled up
+with false curls with open-work silk stockings, and with their bare arms
+and shoulders powdered.
+
+There were statistics showing all the unfortunates who fell victim to
+softening of the brain, lunacy, tuberculosis of the spine and other
+diseases as a result of unnatural practices.
+
+Or descriptions of the soul life of sexual inverts which led one to
+suppose that these thousands of human beings constituted a vast
+community, a community bound together by no ties of common interest, no
+similarity of education, origin, taste or attitude toward life, and
+never by love, but by a common lust for a common form of excess.
+
+There was the biography of a famous man who was miserably murdered by a
+blackmailing waiter with whom he had had intimate relations—whom he had
+_loved_.
+
+Myra shuddered when she thought of the word love in this connection.
+Sometimes it seemed to her as if she would be stifled by so much filth.
+She became physically ill simply from touching the books. Then she would
+not read them—for quite a while. She would read historical, philosophic
+and scientific works. But there were long periods when she was not
+conscious what she was reading. Her eyes ran along the lines and
+reflected the words. But her thoughts struggled with the dreadful things
+that had been flung at her, like blocks of stone, to kill her. Then she
+would pick up the other books again, the bad ones, and look for
+enlightenment and draw conclusions and make comparisons.
+
+Whenever masculine women were discussed, mention was made of their
+superior intelligence, their thirst for knowledge and their desire for
+culture, coupled with an abnormal tendency to spendthriftness, a
+passionate desire for luxury, and an unnatural predilection for
+beautiful foot-gear. Mention was made, too, of weird Don Juan natures
+who passed with insatiable lust from one adventure to another.
+
+As a result of such readings, Myra was left in the most dreadful
+bewilderment. These books should have taught her to understand the
+person who, of all others, had been closest to her. She had said to
+herself a hundred times in the past months, “This woman is a riddle that
+cannot be guessed, a mystery that cannot be solved, forever strange and
+remote, not to be grasped or comprehended. And each time she had felt
+with every fibre of her being, ‘such and such is the solution; now
+everything is clear, everything is all right, nothing can ever arise to
+divide us again.’”
+
+But now, now?
+
+Now Myra felt an anguished need to pack up these books and take them to
+Olga Radó! “Tell me, are there such people? Are you one of them? Am I?
+What do you know about it?”
+
+Olga had had to express an opinion about everything that Myra had heard
+or read in the last year. And Olga’s opinion had nearly always been
+Myra’s, or had aroused, strengthened, clarified another opinion in her.
+
+Now, for the first time, she had to settle such monstrous matters
+single-handed and she groped about blindly in the dark. Where she
+thought to find a light, a way out, she merely strayed deeper into the
+maze. She could neither make headway nor go back.
+
+So Myra wrote a second letter. This time, too, there was not a word
+about love or longing—simply an urgent appeal for help, a good deal of
+complaining about what was happening inside her and a certain
+reproachfulness: you have brought me so far, you must take my hand and
+lead me out of this swamp.
+
+No answer came.
+
+Spring came, however. Warm, caressing winds came, and broad flashing
+rays of sunlight and a veil of buds shrouding every branch, and
+snow-bells and crocuses, forcing their way with difficulty through dark
+purple, rotting leaves.
+
+Myra could not bear the heavy, soft air. She could not sleep and
+suffered from headaches day and night. Reading no longer sufficed to
+distract her mind. She sat bowed over her books and stared out the
+window. The same page would lie in front of her for hours without her
+ever turning it.
+
+She began to read novels. She could not forget she was reading them as
+easily as she could dry scientific works because they stirred her
+imagination and evoked certain pictures.
+
+But those pictures were a torture to her.
+
+There were always people in love with one another. They struggled with
+one another, discovered one another, came together or parted, destroyed
+one another, died or abandoned one another. It hurt her to read of love.
+
+She read of riches, of luxury, of automobiles dashing along highways, of
+white hotels beside blue waters, of balls and banquets and yachts and
+journeys by sledge. Then she would begin to calculate her fortune and
+think, “Olga Radó could have led just such a life if she had remained
+with me.”
+
+The cherries blossomed. Olga Radó was no doubt going by steamer with
+some lovely woman, over the blue waters of the Havel. And all about her
+was a world of beauty and sunshine and light.
+
+Myra was seized with a mad desire to be where Olga was, to lead Olga’s
+life. Pride dropped away from her like a burned rag. She stood naked to
+herself and cried out with the pain.
+
+She wrote her third letter to Olga Radó. She wrote that she could no
+longer live and breathe without her. That she wanted nothing from her,
+not love, or affection or friendship. That she wanted nothing but to
+serve her with all her strength, and in payment she would let herself be
+beaten and kicked. That she would feel no jealousy, no craving, no lust
+of possession. That she would serve anyone, man or woman, whom Olga
+loved, and that she would chain and immure her love so deep within her
+that never, never, never would anyone suspect its existence, not even
+Olga.
+
+Again she waited for an answer. Again none came.
+
+Suddenly it occurred to her that Olga might not have received her
+letters, certainly had not received them.
+
+She went to Motz Street and every step made her feel as if she were
+walking on red hot coals. The same maid answered her ring who had
+admitted her that night. Myra could not bring herself to utter Olga’s
+name, so she asked for Peterkin.
+
+He had moved—address unknown.
+
+She lived through ten more days of torture. Then she went again. A new
+maid opened the door. “I’m in luck,” thought Myra and she was dizzied
+for a moment as the idea flashed through her mind that the next instant
+she might be standing face to face with Olga in her room. What might
+happen afterwards was of no moment.
+
+Miss Radó had moved—address unknown.
+
+Myra went to the bureau of registry. She filled out the prescribed blank
+and gave it to the gray-haired official while her heart throbbed wildly.
+
+The friendly old gentleman rose, went searching, returned and asked if
+the lady lived in her own house. No? Unfortunately, they did not
+register people who lived in lodging-houses.
+
+Then Myra made her last and most difficult attempt. She went to the
+Moebiuses. The girls grinned in her face, impudently, when she asked
+about Olga Radó.
+
+No, they didn’t know anything about her. Naturally, she had not put in
+her appearance here again, and father would probably have very politely
+given her the air if she had. But they would be _delighted_ to find
+things out. Ablaze with curiosity and pruriency, they began to ply her
+with questions, whether it was true that....
+
+Myra blushed and paled, turned hot and cold. She might have murdered one
+of them if she had not been so tired. “I don’t know,” she said. She
+answered all their questions with “I don’t know.”
+
+Perhaps she should have become indignant and defended Olga Radó. Perhaps
+she should have let them slander her and have made all kinds of
+mysterious insinuations. Perhaps she should have laughed and led the
+girls a merry chase. She supported herself against her chair with both
+hands, and said, “I don’t know!”
+
+As she left the house she realized that she would never enter it again.
+A senseless expression kept running through her mind as in a
+delirium—“To be on everybody’s tongue....”
+
+It had never before had any meaning for her. Now she felt, actually in a
+physical way, as if she had been chewed over and spat out on the
+sidewalk. She shuddered with nausea.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+From time to time, but at ever shorter intervals, a dull racking hatred
+began to tarnish the surface of her feeling for Olga Radó. That woman
+was to blame for all that she was now suffering—heedlessly,
+cold-heartedly and quite unscrupulously to blame.
+
+During this period, Myra was very unjust to Olga Radó. For it seemed to
+her as if she had been torn by her from a happy shielded youth, as if a
+profound and placid peace had been destroyed in her, some marvellous
+equilibrium shattered.
+
+The be-all and end-all of her desire seemed to her to be a return to
+what she had once been. Her one wish was to strike the last year out of
+her life, to expunge, to forget it.
+
+Then she would take up those evil books again and deliberately read the
+things which had most nauseated her. She thus artificially intensified
+her hate and anger and fear.
+
+There were days when she said to herself, “At last I am free! It’s as if
+I had recovered from a severe illness; I feel that my blood is pure
+again. From now on I shall live as other people do, without pain and
+without joy, without desire and without fulfillment.”
+
+And there were nights when she felt as if a burning poison were eating
+at her veins, when fear of an unutterly horrible future made her
+shudder. Nights when she felt she must succumb to her unbridled
+appetites, must give herself unresistingly to every loose woman who for
+criminal reasons chose to arouse her passion. She saw herself victimized
+by blackmailers, tracked by the police, sick, insane, in prison or
+murdered.
+
+In one such period of abysmal despair she permitted herself to become
+engaged. Some decent, solid man or other came courting her.
+
+She knew nothing about him. She did not know when or where she had seen
+him for the first time, knew hardly anything of his character or his
+inclinations. She simply became aware one day that for some time there
+had been some person around her who had made an effort to be kind to
+her. Someone who helped her on most carefully with her coat, stooped
+when she dropped something, brought her flowers, and tried to tell her
+cheerful stories in order to brighten her face a little.
+
+The man knew as agreeably little about her. In his presence Aunt Emily
+bubbled over with gentle, motherly solicitude. She could just as well
+have made biting observations or cutting innuendoes about him, but he
+fitted into her program.
+
+He pitied Myra tremendously because she was an orphan. He ascribed all
+the suffering in her pale face to grief for her father. Sometimes he
+ventured to take her cold fingers in both his hands and gently stroke
+them. At such moments Myra would close her eyes and scrutinize her
+feelings in terror. Warmth and peace flowed from his big strong hands.
+His gentle tenderness was pleasant rather than abhorrent. Then Myra
+would say to herself with a burst of hope, “Perhaps everything will be
+all right, after all. Perhaps I shall have somebody near who is good to
+me, I’ll have children and a home, I’ll always have something to
+do—perhaps it is still possible for a life like that to be bearable.”
+
+She felt, too, an irrepressible desire for revenge. It might wound Olga
+Radó’s vanity somewhat, if she learned how quickly she had been
+forgotten.
+
+The man was rich. That suited Aunt Emily and incidentally suited Myra.
+She pictured herself in the loge at the opera, flashing with jewels,
+beside this man, a very attractive and stately man—it would never occur
+to anyone that she had not married him for love—and suddenly Olga Radó
+would appear from somewhere. Or she saw herself driving past Olga Radó
+in a de luxe car. Or best of all, she saw them meeting when she was
+walking with her fair-haired children dressed neatly in white. Then she
+would draw the children away from Olga as if from a venomous snake. That
+was the way, yes, indeed, that was the way to wound Olga most cruelly.
+
+As the man was persistent, Myra said yes. She had had sufficient time to
+accustom herself and took good care that it appeared in various
+newspapers.
+
+On her twenty-first birthday, there was a little garden party at the
+villa of her parents-in-law. It was a very hot day in summer, the
+nineteenth of June, and on Aunt Emily’s advice, Myra again put on a
+white dress trimmed with black.
+
+As she strolled past a mirror in that strange house with all the strange
+people about her, she did not recognize herself. She was shocked and
+could not rid herself of the idea that she was not the pretty girl
+dressed in white, who smiled at her from the mirror, on the arm of that
+strange man.
+
+She tried to find herself and could not imagine where she could be. But
+it seemed to her as if she saw herself, thin and dark, like a specter,
+wandering through great, dark, empty rooms. Again, it seemed to her as
+if she really was the reflection in the glass, and that that other Myra,
+who was so identically like her, was the stranger. Dream and reality
+began to merge inextricably; all her nerves seemed to thrill like
+snapped chords. In mortal fear she longed for complete unconsciousness
+or for sudden complete clarity, feeling as if she were blinded by fog or
+a prey to vertigo. A moment later, she could not understand exactly what
+had happened to her, or give any answer to her fiancé who anxiously
+inquired the cause of her paleness.
+
+But the singular feeling persisted all evening that all this was simply
+a dream, a game. The whole business of the engagement was simply a joke,
+a comedy. Each moment might step forward like a stage-manager and cry,
+“Enough! Let reality resume!”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the twentieth of June, in the morning, Myra was called to the
+telephone. A light masculine voice spoke from the receiver, curiously
+restrained and hesitant.
+
+“Is this Miss Rudloff herself? Myra, is that you? Forgive me for
+disturbing you—I wanted to speak to you!”
+
+Myra felt her heart tear itself loose and plunge into an unfathomable
+dark abyss.
+
+“Peterkin?” she said and tried to suppress her smile without stopping to
+think that no one could see her face. Nor could anyone have heard that
+smile in the trembling of her voice.
+
+“May I speak with you, Myra? I mean....” Again that timid hesitation in
+his voice. “If you care to, you understand. Of course, I don’t know how
+interested you are in your old friends now.”
+
+“It goes without saying,” said Myra firmly, “that you can see me any
+time, where and when you wish.”
+
+She did not ask what had happened. She did not want to ask.
+
+“It can’t come very well.” Again that timid tone. “And I’d rather not go
+on the street ... or to a coffee-house.... It really wouldn’t do....”
+
+“I’ll come to you,” said Myra quickly. “Tell me where you live!”
+
+“Yes—but—is that all right either? Particularly—if anything unpleasant
+should happen.... You’re engaged....”
+
+“Nonsense!” said Myra roughly.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+As she hurried down the street she did not try to picture what might
+actually have happened. She did not want to. “Perhaps Olga is sick and
+wants to see me,” she thought. “Perhaps she doesn’t know anything about
+it, and Peterkin simply called me of his own accord.”
+
+She simply thought that she would see Olga, that she would take her
+hand. At the same time she thought, “I tell myself these things as we
+tell a feverish child stories, I paint them in the brightest colors, and
+believe them no more than we believe in fairies and sorcerers.”
+
+But it was better to tell herself stories, better to sing herself
+cradle-songs, than to listen to the voice that cried the truth deep
+within her.
+
+It was strange how, without a moment’s hesitation, she found the house
+and the street as if she had been there a hundred times.
+
+When she rang, Peterkin was already at the door. That spared her any
+interrogation. And she felt, looking at the maid, the first human face
+she noticed, that she was in no condition to answer questions.
+
+Peterkin took Myra by the hand and, without a word, led her past the
+astonished maid and into his room. He shut the door, and without looking
+at her, said, “Sit down, Myra.”
+
+The first thing that Myra noticed in the room was the gold cigarette
+case on the black surface of the table. A ray of sunlight was flashing
+on it.
+
+She made an effort to restrain herself. It was as if she tugged at the
+reins with both hands in order to check herself. But when Peterkin
+turned to her, and she saw how his hands, how his small white face
+quivered, with what an effort he was struggling for control—she lost
+control herself. She began to cry.
+
+“Cry, cry,” he said at last, his chin quivering, while the tears started
+from his eyes. “Cry, for she was worthy of tears, you can believe
+me....”
+
+“Believe you?” said Myra with heart-rending bitterness. She laid the
+handkerchief over her eyes and supported her head in her hand. Her other
+hand stroked his nervously.
+
+“Now tell me everything, Peterkin. You see that I’m quite calm again,
+quite, quite calm. When did it happen? How? And why? Tell me everything,
+everything you know!”
+
+“I could not tell you, Myra—not before your twenty-first birthday. That
+was yesterday, wasn’t it? I’ve marked it here on the calendar—for
+another reason—I’ll have to tell you all about that, too. I had a
+message to deliver to you. But of course, I had no suspicion—sometimes
+it is as if we were struck blind....”
+
+Myra glanced up for a moment. “Did she do it herself?” There was nothing
+interrogatory in her tone.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Did she shoot herself?”
+
+She covered her eyes again with her handkerchief.
+
+“Go on.”
+
+“She was sick during the spring, a light case of influenza. She had some
+fever and I used to sit beside the bed while she talked of death and
+burial, quite cheerfully and unconcernedly, as she always did. You know
+very well that nobody ever knew whether she was jesting or in earnest.
+She said to me at that time, ‘If I die now, Peterkin, take good care to
+keep it quiet. Don’t let it get into any of the papers, and don’t let
+anybody know about it, not even Myra. I’d like to strew my ashes on the
+sea or at least on the Wannsee. But the State won’t permit that, I
+believe. So simply make haste and have my remains cremated. I will have
+no traffic with my corpse. I won’t be inside it, you can be sure of
+that. Not for one moment longer than necessary will I remain inside my
+corpse.’”
+
+To Myra it seemed as if she were hearing Olga speak. So clearly did she
+hear her voice, that her heart was filled with an inner joy and she
+smiled.
+
+“I smiled, too, at the time,” said Peterkin sorrowfully. “But she became
+quite serious and sat up and looked at me. You know how she could look
+at one out of her intense eyes. ‘It is my sacred wish,’ she said.
+‘Promise me you’ll do it, give me your word of honor!’ I promised her,
+but I said, ‘You’re crazy, in three days you’ll be well again.’ And she
+was well again in three days.” He stopped. Somewhere a clock was ticking
+and flies were buzzing against the window-pane.
+
+Something filled Myra with a few moments of joy and tranquillity. An
+obscure feeling—how good that Olga was well again in three days. There
+was so much vigorous life in that beautiful body.
+
+Then the present struck at her heart like a clenched fist. And now? And
+now? She had to wait a few moments before she could bring herself to
+utter the terrible word.
+
+“Did you bury her at once?” she asked in a very low voice.
+
+“She was cremated. The urn was sent to Vienna. Her sister lives
+there....”
+
+“Did she live here toward the end?”
+
+“Two doors away, around the corner.”
+
+“And it happened there?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Can one ...” Myra swallowed hard, “can one see the room?”
+
+Peterkin shrugged his shoulders slowly. “What is the use? Everything is
+changed. Nothing of hers is left. It has been rented again.”
+
+She had a peculiar feeling; it seemed to her as a curiously happy fact
+that every pattern which this spirit had created was now destroyed.
+There was not even a room left in the world which those hands, that
+mind, had arranged, and in which a trace of her being might have
+survived. Half unconsciously, Myra felt as if the shifting of a few
+pieces of furniture had broken the stones from a prison wall.
+
+Now Olga Radó was wholly free.
+
+A gentle breeze stirred the curtains at the open window. A sweet, cool
+breeze blew over Myra’s burning eyes. She smiled.
+
+“It is best that way!” she said again.
+
+Suddenly she understood that Olga had not received her letters. There
+was no need to inquire about it. But Peterkin was the only person of
+whose opinion she was a little afraid. She felt that she must justify
+herself.
+
+“I wrote Olga three times!” she said.
+
+“I had an idea that you did,” said Peterkin with a gloomy smile.
+
+“She never received a line.”
+
+“But you knew it anyway?”
+
+“Of course. We talked often enough about you.”
+
+While Peterkin was speaking, Myra had a curious feeling that she was
+living over in a few minutes and with the most powerful intensity, the
+last six months of her life. It seemed to her as if on that unhappy
+morning the woof-thread had been broken and day by day had labored at a
+make-shift pattern that was false. Now that false woof had suddenly been
+unravelled as the shuttle plied backwards like lightning. The thread was
+knotted where it had been broken and the true pattern was resumed, a
+little curtailed, perhaps, a little fainter in color, but there it was,
+woven for the present and for all days to come.
+
+“What did you say about me?”
+
+“Oh, a great many things. I urged her so often to write to you, to
+establish some sort of contact with you. But she was convinced that she
+must not do it. Sometimes I thought I would telephone you, or I’d waylay
+you somewhere against her will. Once I suggested it to her. She glared
+at me out of her big eyes. ‘If you ever do any such thing,’ she said,
+‘our friendship is over with for all time! Do you want to destroy the
+poor child?’ She was always of the opinion that you were happy and that
+things were going well with you. But I was sure you must divine what was
+going on. I tried so hard, you’ll never know how hard. Once I promenaded
+under your windows for a whole hour. I always thought that if I could
+only speak to you, we would find some way out. I always thought that
+everything would be all right in the end. Then you became engaged. Yes,
+then I had to admit at last that she was right.”
+
+“Oh, you idiot!” said Myra, laughing through her tears.
+
+“I remember the day so well. Olga came up to my room early in the
+morning. She sat huddled over in the easy-chair, smoking one cigarette
+after another. For half an hour she did not utter a word. I sat here at
+the desk, pretending I was working. I had tossed aside my paper when I
+heard her coming. But from the way she sat there, I thought, ‘She knows
+already!’ She knew I knew it, but neither of us wanted to begin the
+conversation. When she finally did, she kept saying ‘I’m so happy, I’m
+so glad!’ And she demanded that I celebrate with her, too. In the
+evening we went to have a bottle of wine together. She made me do it. I
+can still see her as she sat at the table, turning the wine-glass in her
+hand. She had such a curious smile all that day. Again she said to me,
+‘So little Myra is going to be married. That’s fine, fine. Our little
+Myra will have children, real lads who will never know a trouble in
+life.’ Then she kept demanding that I say how happy it made me. And I
+had to say so—as matters then stood it was the best thing to do—but from
+that day on she lived in morbid dread of meeting you somewhere on the
+street. Sometimes when she needed something, she would ask me to get it.
+She would sit here, pale, with her hands folded, and say, ‘Please,
+please, Peterkin, I can’t go to the store.’ For the last eight or ten
+days she hardly left her room. She used to telephone me to come over,
+she did not want to go on the street. But of course, there was another
+reason for that as well....”
+
+“What was that?” asked Myra after staring silently out of the window for
+a long time.
+
+He cast a quick and searching glance at her. “So you don’t know?” he
+asked as if relieved. “You really know nothing about it? I was sure you
+didn’t. But they had her shadowed—your people, you know. No matter where
+she went there was always a detective after her. Oh, she suffered so
+cruelly because of that!”
+
+“But why?” asked Myra. “Why should they do that? They had me where they
+wanted me. They knew just where I spent every hour of the day.”
+
+“Probably they were afraid. They may have thought, before your
+engagement at any rate, that you might waver in your resolves, or that
+she might try to influence you again; they may have wanted to catch her
+at something so that they could have her deported as an undesirable
+alien. Your Uncle bought up all her debts. You did not know that either,
+I believe. So they had her cornered. Every day there were letters from
+attorneys, from the courts.... Later on she simply refused to open them.
+She used to let them pile up on her desk. I said to her sometimes, ‘You
+can’t do that, you must answer them, you must go, you must make
+promises.’ Then she would smile an infinitely melancholy smile. ‘I’ve
+lost my sense of humor, Peterkin,’ she would say, ‘I’m old and tired. It
+isn’t a hunt as far as I’m concerned’—and she indicated the pile of
+papers with a wave of her hand.
+
+“Then there were threatening letters—I can’t tell you how vulgar. Filled
+with expressions that one simply can’t repeat. From your Aunt Emily, I
+think. But they were sent as if they came from you. They said you knew
+now the sort she was and wanted her to drop every attempt to get in
+touch with you and to stop blackmailing you. It was sufficient that she
+had seduced you into stealing and breaking open people’s desks, that she
+had undermined your health, that she had caused your father’s death—ah,
+I don’t know all that was in them. And then, things you were supposed to
+have said—they must have been horrible, for she would never tell me what
+they were or let me read them.
+
+“She used to sit here in front of me, her face perfectly white and her
+eyes blazing, while she gripped my wrist so that I thought she would
+snap the bone. ‘Myra doesn’t know anything of this, does she, Peterkin?’
+she kept repeating, ‘Myra doesn’t know about this?’
+
+“There were times when I did not like that tone of voice. But now, when
+it is ringing in my ears again, I don’t see how I could have failed to
+understand it. From that time forth, she began frequently to speak of
+the journey. ‘I’m going home on the twenty-second of June.’ She was
+always saying it. Once I asked her why she had chosen that particular
+day. She laughed and said, ‘Because it is three days after the
+nineteenth.’ I pondered over it considerably. But at that time the
+connection was not clear to me....
+
+“But after your engagement everything was different. Suddenly she began
+to say ‘When I go away—next week—or the day after tomorrow,’ I teased
+her about it, ‘So you’ve turned traitor to your plans? I thought you
+weren’t going away until three days after the nineteenth?’ Then she
+looked at me mysteriously and shook her head. ‘Ah, no, Peterkin, I have
+no reason for waiting now!’”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+“On the evening of the ... on Monday evening, she appeared here suddenly
+in what I thought was a very cheerful state of mind. She laid the
+cigarette case on my desk just where it’s lying now, and asked me to do
+her the favor of placing it in your hands. She intended to go away and
+was already packing. If she sent the case to you, it would probably be
+taken as an attempt at blackmail!
+
+“I was to give it to you after she had gone—on your birthday. And she
+insisted that I mark the date on my calendar. I said I could remember it
+without that. But she opened my calendar to the date and marked it
+herself.”
+
+With an almost devout gesture, he turned back the last leaf and pushed
+the calendar toward Myra. In the white space, under the nineteenth of
+June, which had been carefully circled, was written in Olga’s bold,
+beautiful hand, “Myra’s birthday. Don’t forget, Peterkin!” Underneath
+were three crosses, playful little crosses marked in black ink.
+
+Myra said nothing. She laid the palm of her hand on the paper and did
+not remove it.
+
+Peterkin cleared his throat a few times and continued. “Before she left,
+we arranged everything for the next day. We would inquire about the
+trains in the morning; in the evening, I would take her to the station.
+But when she had gone, I grew terribly nervous. Something struck me as
+wrong, but I didn’t know what it was. I tried to telephone her, but
+there was no answer. I sat here at my desk in a quite indescribable
+state of nerves. This thing was lying before me,” he picked up the
+cigarette case. “I picked it up quite without thinking. Suddenly it
+occurred to me—pardon, Myra, if it was not discreet, but I felt such
+dreadful anxiety—suddenly it occurred to me to open it. I did so half in
+fun, half with the notion that I might find something in it which would
+tell me something. When I opened it, I found this note.”
+
+He handed it to Myra. Under the clasps that were to hold the cigarettes
+against the case, was a slip of paper. On it was written in Olga’s
+unmistakable hand:
+
+                 “_Qui vivens laedit, morte medetur!_”
+
+“_Qui vivens laedit, morte medetur!_” repeated Peterkin. “I read it
+several times like a drunken man without understanding. Then I rushed
+down. Without my hat, without my keys. The lower house was locked. I
+rang for the doorman. He did not come at once. I rushed upstairs again
+to get my keys. It took me ages to unlock the house, to run around the
+corner and ring for their doorman—ages. On the stairs I met the maid,
+screaming and sobbing. It had already happened.”
+
+Myra laid her forehead against the edge of the desk. Not a sound was to
+be heard. Peterkin stroked Myra’s hair once or twice, with trembling
+fingers.
+
+“There is something else that I must tell you,” he said in a low voice.
+“She was completely covered with your flowers. Perhaps that will make
+you happy. You know, when you parted that time—you ran downstairs with
+your people after you—I half heard what was said between you. After
+quite a long while I went back to my room—there was Olga still standing
+in the middle of the room, supporting herself against the table. When I
+entered, she looked at me as if I were awaking her from sleep. I took
+her by both arms and shook her. ‘What’s happened, Olga? What have you
+done to Myra?’ She looked distractedly at me and kept repeating
+‘Something terrible, Oh, God, Peterkin, something terrible!’ She showed
+you the door quite formally, did she not? She said that you shouldn’t
+bother her again, or something like that, didn’t she?
+
+“Then she seized my hand and said very quietly, ‘I’m lying, Peterkin,
+I’m simply lying. It was nothing but my miserable cowardice. But Myra
+must know that, she understands me. I would have jumped in front of a
+train for her, I’d have jumped out a window, but I can’t let the clothes
+be torn off my body in front of such people, I can’t, I can’t. I know,
+I’m a miserable, contemptible creature, but I can’t, I can’t.’ I asked
+her what you had answered. She turned quite pale and said, ‘Nothing. Not
+a word. That’s the terrible part. She was so defenseless against my
+commonness.’
+
+“Then she had another discussion with Miss Flesch. You have no idea how
+that woman acted. Olga would not remain in the house another hour. For
+which I could hardly blame her. Then she went to pack her things. In a
+few moments she came back, and seizing me by the wrist, drew me into her
+room.
+
+“‘That is her answer,’ she said and showed me the money on the bed. ‘She
+is articulate,’ she said. ‘We underestimated her powers.’ Oh, Myra, why
+did you do that? To be quite frank, I was dreadfully angry with you
+myself at the time. She kept saying ‘What shall I do? What shall I do?’
+I said ‘Put the money in an envelope and send it back without any
+message.’ But she shook her head. ‘I deserved the blow,’ she said at
+last, ‘I will have to take it and smile.’ She gathered the bills almost
+lovingly, saying several times in a low voice, ‘What a child! What a
+child! She did not know what she was doing! She did not know what she
+was doing!’ Then she gave me the roll of bills. ‘Keep it for me,
+Peterkin, the time may come when I shall need it, and when it will be a
+joy to me to know that it comes from Myra.’
+
+“I mentioned it to her often before the end, when she literally did not
+know which way to turn for troubles. But she always shook her head and
+said, ‘Not yet, not yet!’
+
+“After she—was dead,” his voice broke, “I bought white orchids for her,
+I spent the whole sum: she looked beautiful.”
+
+He could get no further. His lips quivered, the tears rolled down his
+cheeks. After a long, long pause, Myra sat up: her eyes were dry.
+
+Beside the cigarette case, on the desk, lay a revolver.
+
+“Is that the revolver?” asked Myra and reached for it.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Give it to me.” She clasped the butt in her fingers.
+
+Peterkin made a gesture of terror. But Myra slowly shook her head.
+Peterkin looked into her eyes, then he reluctantly drew back his hand.
+
+“I do not want to keep it,” he said, “it is too much of a constant
+temptation. And not everyone has as steady a hand as Olga Radó. You have
+a right to it. Of course. But I should not like you to keep it either.
+Promise me something, Myra—promise me you will give it to the man you
+love. Then it will be in the best hands.”
+
+She had risen. “I promise you,” she said almost solemnly, “I will give
+it to the man I love.”
+
+“Promise that you won’t do anything silly with it, that you won’t carry
+it carelessly or foolishly.”
+
+“I promise you,” said Myra, “with this proviso. I have no right yet to
+swear on my life that I won’t shoot myself. But I will swear by my
+eternal salvation. I will swear by Olga Radó’s ten thousand times sacred
+memory.”
+
+Something struck him in her tone. He rose slowly from his chair as if
+trying to search her eyes with his own. “Tell me, Myra,” he said, “I
+hope you are not angry with me. I should not like anything that I have
+said to influence your decisions in any way.”
+
+Myra held his fingers in a short firm clasp. From the swift gesture with
+which she drew herself up and ran her hand over his hips, it was
+apparent that she was at the utmost limit of her powers.
+
+“I swear,” she said, “that from this hour forth nothing and nobody can
+ever again influence my decisions.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Myra did not return home at once. In a few seconds she had made plans
+which instantly became decisions. There was no wavering as they took
+form; it all advanced with one stride from darkness into light and
+remained there irrevocably.
+
+She visited a shipping-agency and the landlord of the house in which she
+had spent so many years. There was a time when she would have dreaded
+such tasks. Now she felt that never as long as she lived should anyone
+relieve her of such unpleasantnesses.
+
+It made her feel good, to be determined, to manage her affairs prudently
+and deliberately. When she entered her room and laid her hat in the
+closet, her hand touched the black dress that she had worn to her
+father’s burial. For a moment, she felt a desire to put it on, to see
+herself in gloomy crêpe. But she drew herself up. “Nonsense!” she
+muttered, gritted her teeth and shut the closet.
+
+She went to her father’s study, seated herself at the desk and wrote
+various letters, to the attorney, to the bank.
+
+After a while the maid entered. “Your Aunt, my mistress, requests you to
+come to dinner.”
+
+Myra did not raise her head. “Tell your mistress, my Aunt, that I have
+already eaten. And request my Aunt, your mistress, to come here after
+dinner.”
+
+The maid stood in the door for a moment, her mouth wide open. But as
+Myra did not stir, adding nothing and retracting nothing, simply
+scratching her pen hurriedly over the paper, she trotted off.
+
+Presently, Aunt Emily appeared, visibly undecided as to whether to be
+indignant or affable.
+
+“Sit down, please,” said Myra in a tone, so businesslike, so short, so
+firm and unimpeachably polite that it threw Aunt Emily into confusion
+and deprived her of all power of speech. “Pardon me, if I shorten your
+afternoon nap a little, but I have something to say to you and time is
+pressing.”
+
+Myra picked up the paper-knife, turned it over and over, bent it, rapped
+her outstretched fingers with it, and stared intently at it while she
+spoke.
+
+“You will have to decide quickly where you are going—I am about to
+travel....”
+
+“You?”
+
+“I am about to travel. We are going to break up the household. The house
+will be rented. Newes has agreed to let me break the lease. The
+furniture will be put in storage. Within the next few days. I’m
+beginning today. The moving-men will be here tomorrow. You will
+certainly want to get out of the way of the commotion. I suggest that
+you go to a hotel or a pension until you have definitely made up your
+mind. If you need the maid this afternoon to help you pack, she will be
+at your service. And then—I should not like you to suffer in a pecuniary
+way on my account. I should prefer if you were to state your wishes in
+writing and hand them to Rosenbaum. I have already written him in this
+connection.”
+
+Myra laid down the paper-knife.
+
+“That’s about all!” She rose and supported herself with her hands behind
+her, against the desk. “But if we should not see one another again,
+God’s will be done, and well done by you.”
+
+Aunt Emily also rose, her knees trembling, while her face turned all
+shades of color from citron yellow to ash gray.
+
+“And—and Alfred?” she asked with a vain effort to inject a touching
+gentleness into her sharp voice.
+
+“What? Who?” Myra knitted her brow. “Oh, yes—no thank you. You don’t
+have to notify him. I will take care of everything necessary myself.”
+
+“Myra!” said Aunt Emily solemnly, “what would your dear father say! I
+have cared for and shielded you from the day you were born, and for
+thanks I am shown the door....”
+
+Myra seized the paper-knife again.
+
+“I have already written Rosenbaum that he is to transfer fifty thousand
+marks of my fortune to you. With what you have and what is coming to you
+from father, you can live very comfortably indeed. I will go tomorrow
+morning and give him the necessary authorizations.”
+
+“Myra,” said Aunt Emily with mounting pathos. “I shielded you from an
+awful fate. You ought to go down on your knees and thank me!”
+
+“All right, all right,” said Myra and made a rather wry mouth. “I’ll
+tell Rosenbaum a hundred thousand.”
+
+Then Aunt Emily turned and rushed out.
+
+Myra packed her things in feverish haste as if for flight. She worked
+all day and night, permitting no one to help her, not even the maid, not
+even Peterkin.
+
+But on the evening, when she was departing, Peterkin came to fetch her
+from the house and accompany her to the depot.
+
+The house was dark and empty. All the furniture had been removed. The
+chandeliers were down and the windows curtainless. Here and there a
+picture hook projected disconsolately from the bare wall, or a square on
+the paper showed that a picture had hung there for years. A big suitcase
+and a small bag stood in the middle of the empty room. Myra had stuck a
+lit taper on the window-sill. It gave a strange, flickering half-light.
+Their shadows glided, huge and bent along the walls and ceiling.
+
+Peterkin kept glancing at his watch. “Isn’t it time for me to call the
+taxi?” he asked uneasily.
+
+Myra raised her hand. “Stop it! We have oceans of time. What would we do
+at the station? And what difference does it make if I miss the train?
+I’ll simply leave in the early morning.”
+
+“Ah,” said Peterkin relieved, “I’d much prefer that. I don’t understand
+how anybody can travel at night.”
+
+“I’ll travel in the morning,” said Myra. “In a few hours the dawn will
+come. But I love the night. Whoever loves the stars must love the night.
+Tell me, Peterkin, have you really never thought that they’re up there
+in the daytime, too—just as remote and just as near as at night?
+Sometimes I try to see them when the sun is shining—and I feel quite
+certain—that such and such a one is here, and another there, and I can
+hardly wait for twilight to make them visible.”
+
+“You get that from her, too,” said Peterkin sadly, “that insane love of
+the stars.”
+
+“Yes,” said Myra and her deep voice was like a bell, “what have I that I
+didn’t get from her? Everything! Certainly all love. The earth and sky
+are full of things she loved. And her love streams back to me again from
+all those things. Good God, how many things she loved. Mountains and
+seas and flowers and spiders and little children and leather and silk
+and crystal and Günderode and the blessed St. Francis of Assisi—and—me.
+
+“Truly, she taught me love. Good heavens, if Aunt Emily were to hear
+that she would certainly read a wrong meaning into it.
+
+“Once she said something to me, Olga, I mean, it was when we were on our
+trip and were talking about our future, and I said that I did not want
+to be separated from her until I came of age. Then she grew quite
+impatient and said, ‘Good heavens, what a dreadful attitude, never to be
+able to love what you aren’t holding in your own two hands!’
+
+“Wasn’t she right, too? Why shouldn’t one love the dead and those who
+are arriving and those who are far away, whose existence we can only
+surmise or whose creation wafts us a breath of their souls? And why only
+one, why not thousands—those for whom we yearn and those who yearn for
+us—those who have died with longing for us unfulfilled, and those who
+will live with longing unfulfilled after us, when we have long been
+dead. Sometimes I feel as if I should stretch both my arms into space
+and call, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you!’”
+
+“It is strange,” said Peterkin timidly, shaking his head as he gazed up
+at Myra who stood, weirdly tall and slender in the spectral light, “it
+is strange how like her you sometimes are.”
+
+“It is much stranger how _unlike_ her I was,” said Myra, with a smile.
+“Remote, strange, unrelated. So horribly unlike her that I really did
+not understand her at all. I think I tormented her to death with
+jealousy and distrust.”
+
+“And now?” asked Peterkin. “Would you be jealous and distrustful now?
+Who knows, if you had remained together, perhaps in a few months you
+would have had cause to be.”
+
+Myra shook her head slowly. “You’re just trying to comfort me, Peterkin.
+But you don’t succeed. My delight in her was so uncontrollable. Even
+though her form were destroyed a thousand times, my delight in her will
+always remain. I see now that I should not have been so greedy as to rob
+heaven and earth of her love. But Olga never deceived me. Never, never,
+never!”
+
+“The train, Myra,” warned Peterkin.
+
+Myra glanced at her wrist-watch. “Yes, we must go.”
+
+Peterkin went to call a taxi. The chauffeur carried down the luggage.
+
+“And look there,” she rose with a strange rapture on her face and
+pointed to the starry sky, “there’s Antares! The heart of the Scorpion!
+I’ll follow it, farther and farther south. We may remain together, or I
+may wait until it appears again, for it is the most trustworthy of
+friends.”
+
+“Nevertheless,” said Peterkin, “I have a feeling that it will be very
+little protection or friendship for you. When I think that in a few
+nights you will be sleeping in a strange city, in a strange bed....”
+
+“Splendid!” said Myra. “That is the one thing that can give me peace. A
+room that I’ve never set eyes on before. And what if that room is
+already there and another person occupies it and fills it with his
+sorrows and joys and worries and thoughts? Must one always lie down in a
+strange bed with a feeling of aversion? There are no strange microbes
+and bacteria in a freshly made hotel bed.
+
+“In the morning the strange bed will tell me everything it has ever
+experienced. That’s also a fairy gift, you know. I’m no longer afraid
+because things begin to talk to me. It is always the lucky children in
+the fairy tales or the wise men in the stories—King Solomon conversing
+with the birds—to whom things and animals and trees tell their secrets.
+You don’t know what that means. The whole world was so dreadfully mute.
+And now everywhere I hear beloved, familiar, inaudible voices. You can’t
+imagine with what joy and pride that fills one. See, Peterkin, that is
+something else that I learned from her, from Olga.”
+
+“I am grateful to her for what hours of pleasure I may again find in
+this masked ball of life, but if the effort seems worthless to me, then
+I shall be grateful to her for showing me the exit.”
+
+“Yes,” said Peterkin somewhat bitterly, “a loaded revolver.”
+
+“Oh, more than that,” said Myra, “it isn’t done with that alone. Don’t
+you remember what the little mermaid yearned for, why she let them cut
+off her tongue, why she suffered a thousand agonies at every step she
+took—what only a great, a truly great love could give her? Well, Olga
+gave me that. Olga has given me everything one needs to confront the
+future with imperturbable calm—a loaded revolver and an immortal soul!”
+
+
+
+
+                                   X
+
+
+Myra locked and bolted the door. She heard the footsteps of the maid
+grow fainter, a click as the electric lights were turned on and off, a
+latch lifted somewhere in the distance, the creaking of a hinge—more
+steps, probably on the next floor—and a slowly repeated, irregular sound
+as if an open window were banging. Then silence. Vast, overarching,
+empty, cool, dark, unmoving silence.
+
+Myra had to make up her mind at last to take her hand from the lock and
+go to the electric button, although she was afraid of the sound of her
+footsteps and the rustling of her own skirt. She turned on all the
+lights, even the little lamps beside the bed and on the desk. In the
+overilluminated room, she stole along the walls, opening and closing the
+closets, raising the curtains and drawing them again.
+
+She was not afraid that there might be a murderer hidden in the room,
+but she wished to familiarize herself with every detail of her strange
+surroundings. She was merely afraid that something might surprise, and
+thereby terrify, her. The unfamiliar furniture might assume the form of
+a phantom figure in the dark room, a draft might twist the curtains into
+human shape. She also examined the pictures very carefully. She
+recollected from feverish nights in her childhood that even well-known
+pictures, when seen in the dusk or in the penumbra of the night-lamp by
+the bed, can transform themselves into terrifying faces.
+
+When she had examined the room in this fashion, she again turned out all
+the bulbs except one that shed only a very diffuse light. But there was
+no longer anything to terrify her in this twilight: Myra knew that that
+crouching shadow was the curved commode, and that unaccountable ray of
+light came from the edge of the mirror above the wash-basin, reflecting
+the reflection of the electric light in the mirror on the bureau.
+
+She opened her suitcase and took out various articles she needed—a
+night-dress, which she spread on the bed, a couple of bottles and
+brushes, which she carried to the wash-basin. Then she brought the box
+from the night-table and laid a piece of soft white silk on the
+bottom—as carefully as if she were smoothing her lover’s couch, or
+preparing for a priestly service. With cautious movements, as if she
+were handling living objects, she laid the revolver and the
+cigarette-case with the scorpion inside. She shut the box with a
+determined gesture, for, as always, the sight of the revolver aroused in
+her an almost passionate desire to set its cool, smooth, metallic mouth
+to her temple. She was afraid to give way to this desire, for she was
+not sure that some sudden impulse might not make her pull the trigger,
+and thus, lead her, rather by accident than from necessity, to destroy
+herself, and thereby extinguish thought, feeling, memory, anticipation.
+
+She did not wish to die. Or rather, she would gladly have died, if it
+had not involved being dead. She would gladly have died the same death
+as Olga, if only to be able to know with her last thought that she was
+suffering all that Olga had suffered, and that it was not so unbearable,
+so terrible, as inexperience imagined it.
+
+On the other hand, she felt a fierce desire for life of which she knew
+so little. Not that she promised herself any great joys, any fine
+raptures therefrom. But she felt so well armed against the beautiful and
+terrifying monster that it would have been a pity to give up the
+struggle. It seemed to her as if Olga’s blood had bathed her soul in
+that invulnerability that Siegfried found in the dragon’s blood. She was
+convinced that she had surmounted the most beautiful, the most
+difficult, the most significant part of her life. In the tragedy or
+comedy in which birth compelled her to participate, she had had to play
+her part only in the first act. She had expended all her strength and
+feeling—and now she mingled with the supers, still eager, but exhausted
+by the shocks which she had undergone: half curiously, half wearily, she
+watched the others act.
+
+In reality, her curiosity was stronger than she knew, and although she
+thought, or wished to think, that she was no longer capable of any
+powerful emotion, either joy or pain, although she felt that her peace
+of mind was steeled against impacts of every sort, she felt moved to try
+the invulnerability of her armor, to seek out new impressions, and
+expose herself to them. She would plunge into the thickest of the fray,
+pressing the bristling spear-heads to her breast.
+
+The first to which she so eagerly offered herself and whose wounds she
+had certainly not suffered before, were strangeness of surroundings and
+solitude.
+
+As a result of the feeling that in her new freedom she had herself
+elected strangeness and solitude, and as a result, too, of the thought
+that nothing more could hurt her, nothing more must hurt her since her
+separation from Olga Radó, she felt the cold and almost hostile silence
+as a kind of beneficent release.
+
+One thing she knew—she could endure solitude. But tomorrow she would be
+compelled to take her meals in a room containing ten or twenty strange
+people. The idea almost took away her breath. She felt curious eyes
+pricking her skin like pin-points. But she would endure that, too.
+
+Somewhere below a door slammed, with a dull, heavy sound that shook all
+the walls. The elevator rose with a humming noise as if the huge body of
+the house were drawing a labored breath. In the stillness of the night
+she could hear quite clearly the click as it passed the first, then the
+second, floor.
+
+She heard, too, the opening of doors, the clinking of keys and grinding
+of locks, the snapping of electric buttons, footsteps moving carefully
+over muffling carpets or pounding on the bare floor. A suppressed laugh,
+a whispered good night.
+
+Myra tried to decide whether these voices which she could barely hear
+were pleasant or unpleasant. She arrived at no very definite decision.
+
+The door opened in the adjoining room. Again she heard the softest
+rustling, the click of the electric light, the drawing of curtains.
+
+Myra knew nothing of the man in the next room, nothing. Not even his
+name, not even his age, not even as much as can be read in any face that
+hastily passes one by in a dark street. And yet she knew that her
+neighbor did not care to be waked up early, for she heard the window
+shut with considerable care. That he was a considerate person, for he
+took pains to make no noise, pulled off his shoes quietly and stole
+about in soft slippers so that she could no longer hear him walking, and
+sensed his presence only by a slight vibration. He was a cleanly person,
+too, for despite the lateness of the hour, he brushed his teeth at some
+length.
+
+It made Myra laugh. Perhaps it would be best to make the acquaintance of
+all one’s fellow humans in this fashion. What good did it do to learn a
+stranger’s name, or his occupation, or his father’s position? What use
+was it to talk with someone and know no more about him in the end than
+where he spent last summer or what he thought of the latest operetta?
+But what use was it, either, to live with only a wall dividing you from
+someone so that you could hear every breath he drew—and still know
+nothing about him?
+
+Ah, of what use was it to be of one blood with someone, and spend your
+life with him from the day you were born? Of what use was it to love
+someone, to love him with every fibre of your body and soul—if in the
+last analysis you really knew nothing about one another?
+
+Myra went to the window and leaned out. She scanned the heavens for
+Antares, her star. But the brick walls of the houses hid it. She leaned
+out a little farther, peering down into the air-shaft. She felt a
+strange dizziness. If she were to fall down there, no one would notice
+it. If they found her body there in the morning, nobody would know what
+to do, whom to notify, whom to send for.
+
+Myra was indeed free. So free that it sent a little shiver down her
+spine. Not the trace of a chain left, but no bond of any kind, either;
+no walls to circumscribe her, but also no sheltering roof.
+
+The persons to whom love or obligation had bound her were dead. Her
+father was dead, Olga was dead. From the others she had severed herself
+with one sharp slash.
+
+“Dear stars,” thought Myra, “how good it is that you are up there!
+Always the same, after tens of thousands of years, the same as when Olga
+and I lay by the Wannsee. There is no such thing as chance, there can be
+no such thing as chance. Why do not the stars collide and plunge with a
+trail of sparks through the night? Eternal, immutable laws keep their
+huge bodies floating in space and guide them with as vast composure
+along their courses as if it were the easiest thing in the world to rule
+the stars. At some point I, too, am subject to those laws and cannot
+resist—nor do I want to. I am afraid when I must decide to go right or
+left, and yet all roads are closed to me except that single one which I
+shall and must take because it is mine, the one immutably predestined
+road which will lead me to my goal. To what goal? That I do not know.
+But since I am alive there is probably something in store for me
+somewhere, and the best course is to await it in patience.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the large dining-room of the pension, Myra had her table in the
+darkest corner. The friendly hostess had felt obliged to apologize
+because all the places near the window were occupied by prior guests. It
+quite suited Myra. She sat with her back to the wall and the little
+table before her like a bastion. Usually she appeared when the first
+gong struck so that she could watch the others pass by and would not
+have to weave her way between the crowded tables. Once she was late, and
+the short walk across the room had been a torture to her. She felt
+herself racked and impeded by all the shamelessly inquisitive, and even
+the indifferent, glances. Although she always looked into the mirror
+before she left her room, she thought that her hair must be disordered
+if a glance rested on it, or that she had a hole in her stocking if
+someone stared at her legs. Then she would have to struggle sternly
+against the impulse to put her hand to her head, or to glance at her
+feet. She would press her elbows against her body, and endeavor to
+assume an impenetrable expression, and to move cautiously—she was
+plagued by the idea that she would overturn a chair or upset a plate.
+She tried to walk so quickly that no one could observe how precisely she
+navigated. Once seated, she felt as if she had reached a haven.
+
+Generally, she took a newspaper with her, in order to screen herself
+behind it while she was waiting. She was not afraid that someone might
+accost her—talking was much less terrifying to her than walking—she was
+afraid of looking as if she were expecting to be accosted, so
+unoccupied, so solitary, so hungry for a charitable word.
+
+Actually, she was nothing of the kind. The less she had occasion to
+speak, the less she missed speaking. But while it caused her no
+unhappiness, it did require a certain resolution before she could bring
+herself to say something to the maid. When, in the evening, she went to
+her room, and bolted the door after the last, “That will be all, thank
+you, Bertha,” the feeling that now she could be silent, now she was
+permitted to be silent, was like a deliverance to her. At times it
+seemed to her as if her tongue had become atrophied like any other
+disused muscle. And she wasted no further pity on the Trappists because
+she perceived quite clearly that it requires but a few weeks so to
+accustom one’s self to silence that the utterance of a word presents
+tremendous difficulties.
+
+Myra’s yearning for Olga almost drove her mad—but that was by no means
+the worst of it. The worst was that her yearning was the cry of a human
+soul, not for love, not for companionship or understanding, but for the
+warmth of a body, for the pressure of encircling arms and tender lips.
+
+At such times, Myra would tear the pillow with her nails and teeth, and
+shake as if in fever. At such moments, too, she felt certain that she
+really must be a wicked creature, the most damning evidence being that
+she could never succeed in feeling repentant or in making good
+resolutions. On the contrary, if she were very unhappy, she resolved at
+once to be wicked. Her desire to study and improve herself was only for
+the sake of acquiring more power over people, to beguile, to seduce
+them. Then she would enjoy whatever stirred her desire or her curiosity,
+were it only for an hour; she would merely skim the chalice, squeeze the
+juices from the fruit, and pass quickly from one sensation to another,
+never boring herself, never tying herself to anything, never creating
+from the depths.
+
+Some such resolution impelled her to mingle with people. She meant to
+plunge head first into the stream, because she felt within herself the
+power to master the current. She determined to start an acquaintance the
+next day, to place herself on speaking terms with someone. Like a stone
+cast in the waters, a word can spread wider and wider ripples. In a few
+weeks she might find herself the center of a circle.
+
+But next day when she reviewed all the faces, they seemed to her
+suddenly vacuous and boresome, or false and sinister, and she drew into
+herself like a frightened hedgehog, timid and hostile. She made a new
+resolution—not to speak, never, never to say a word, never to utter more
+than was absolutely essential, to erect barricades and walls of silence
+between herself and the world.
+
+Things might have gone along in this fashion for weeks and months, had
+not Gisela Werkenthin arrived at the pension one day, to visit the
+painted young lady. She attracted Myra the instant that she entered the
+dining hall. Not that she was especially beautiful. She was built on the
+slim, slight, boyish scheme. Her narrow face seemed even narrower
+because of her dark hair, which was cut in page fashion and concealed
+half of her cheeks. Her mouth was all but lipless, simply a delicate,
+pale red, proud, severe curved line. Her dark eyes with their strikingly
+wide lids lay in great, deep ashen-gray hollows.
+
+That night Myra did not rise from table immediately after supper as
+usual. She ordered a cup of tea and in order to have a pretext,
+pretended to be stirring the tea impatiently, to cool it while she
+watched the table at which sat the pale girl with the bobbed hair.
+
+She laughed with the others, drank and smoked innumerable cigarettes.
+But she had a trick of withdrawing completely into herself in the midst
+of the noisy conversation. Her slender hand with its lit cigarette would
+remain as if petrified in the air, while her eyes bored through the fog
+of tobacco smoke and steam as if they were beholding something
+indescribably horrible.
+
+The next day Myra visited Mrs. Meidinger, the hostess. There was a small
+matter she had to discuss with her which ordinarily she would have
+conveyed by the maid. But during the night, she determined irrevocably
+to make her leap into “life.” It was for this reason that she
+constrained herself for the first time to pay a personal call. The
+hostess, blond, rotund, coiffured and as amiable as ever, received her
+in her comfortable living-room, enthroned behind a well-covered
+tea-table.
+
+She seemed quite enchanted to see Myra. She teased so long that at last
+Myra accepted a cup of tea, while she began to ply the girl with
+questions in which curiosity and friendliness were equally commingled,
+and which Myra answered because she saw no reason not to answer them.
+But she smiled slightly and thought, “If I really wanted to hide
+something from you, my dear, I would do it so well that you would never
+even suspect it.”
+
+She readily admitted that she was an orphan. Yes, she believed that the
+mourning she was now wearing for her father did explain her pale and
+sorrowful expression. Thus the good-natured and inquisitive woman would
+never think of any secret grief or probe its causes.
+
+Myra’s story was soon told. She was an orphan, had neither brothers nor
+sisters nor grandparents, and had visited this strange city in order to
+dispel her sad memories in a new environment. The hostess was satisfied
+with that explanation, or appeared to be. She confessed to Myra—what
+surprised her very much—that all the guests had inquired concerning her,
+and that each had assumed some romantic history behind the silent young
+lady in mourning. Miss Luigi—no doubt Myra knew who Miss Luigi
+was—worked at a cabaret and had enjoyed a great success, a really
+extraordinary success. Yes, the little lady with the beautiful red
+hair—dyed, quite obviously, as perhaps Myra had already remarked? Anyway
+Miss Luigi was always teasing her to introduce her to Myra. But when
+Mrs. Meidinger had told Miss Peters, the latter had said—Miss Peters was
+always very outspoken—and sometimes even a little broad—she had said,
+“What, you mean to introduce that delicate, tender, unborn babe to
+those....” Well, she would rather not repeat what Miss Peters had said.
+Miss Peters was sometimes a little broad. But little Miss Luigi was by
+no means as bad as that. Of course, she was no angel from heaven—but
+whose business was that? She, Mrs. Meidinger, was not her sister’s
+keeper—and the most important thing was that her house remained honest;
+that was her business and nobody could say anything against it. If a
+young woman has to earn her bread these days like a man, she wants to
+take her fun like a man, too. Of course, she liked respectable people,
+that went without saying. But, ah, who was respectable in these days?
+Some did one thing, some another. Had Myra noticed Gisela yesterday?
+
+Myra assumed a forgetful expression, but felt as if she had blushed.
+
+“One of the girls who visited Miss Luigi?”
+
+“Yes, the dark one. Oh, you must have noticed her, Miss Rudloff! She
+looks so unhappy, so dreadfully unhappy! Didn’t it strike you? Of
+course, you wouldn’t notice such a thing, but it’s easy for anybody who
+knows, to see that she’s a dope-fiend. It certainly is no indiscretion
+on my part to tell you what the whole town is talking about. And such a
+talented person! It’s a terrible pity, but she’s going to pieces,
+literally going to pieces, over another woman!”
+
+An artistic pause. Mrs. Meidinger looked at Myra expectantly. Myra felt
+that the glance demanded some comment from her.
+
+“How dreadful!” she said in the tone of a child to whom someone has just
+told something incredibly horrible.
+
+“Yes, my dear little girl,” said the hostess with an almost
+commiserating condescension, “in your big innocent eyes it is easy to
+read the question: ‘Are such things possible?’ My child, have you any
+idea of all that goes on! We live in an appalling age, really! But what
+can one do about it? We can no more escape our times than we can jump
+out of our own skins. If I had had my way, I’d have lived among
+respectable people where things are decent. Or have sat at the feet of
+Goethe. But where is one to find a Goethe today?”
+
+Myra frankly regretted her inability to assist Mrs. Meidinger to this
+longed-for situation. She pictured it very amusingly to herself, and
+took her leave as soon as possible.
+
+Even while she was traversing the long, feebly lighted corridor that led
+to her room, her thoughts returned to poor Gisela, and did not leave her
+again.
+
+Poor Gisela, going to pieces over a woman! Ah, how well Myra understood
+that! Just as Gisela would understand Myra. Would understand all that
+Myra had been through, her struggles, her sorrow, her love.
+
+Myra felt as if she must seek out this strange girl with the burning,
+tormented eyes, must follow her, must seize her hand and say, “We
+understand each other, we belong to each other, because we are the most
+unfortunate souls in the world! We must become friends because no one
+except ourselves can ever understand what we have suffered.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next evening the conversation between the tables concerned some
+story in the newspapers. Some had read it, others not, and since Myra
+had a paper in her hand she offered it to her neighbor. Little Miss
+Luigi also asked if she might glance over it, a request which Myra
+granted with great cordiality, and in five minutes a general
+conversation was in swing.
+
+Next day it seemed perfectly natural to Miss Luigi to say a few friendly
+words to Myra. In the evening when she was inviting her usual crowd to
+“sample” a glass of brandy in her room, she walked over to Myra’s table
+and asked her to come up, too, for a quarter of an hour—nothing
+“formal,” just “sociable.”
+
+Myra gave herself a mental push, and rose to go. She had to pass the
+table at which were sitting Luisa Peters and her companions. Myra held
+her head high as she walked by, but she thought she could feel their
+surprised and scornful looks along her spine. Defiance welled up within
+her, and she linked her arm in little Mara Luigi’s. “I belong with
+these,” it was meant to say to the others, “with these whom you despise
+but who sympathize with me. I don’t belong with you hardened saints. You
+never gave a thought to me before, now it serves you right if I am
+lost!”
+
+As she became conscious of this feeling, it struck her as the height of
+absurdity. What had these utter strangers to do with her? In what way
+were they responsible for her? Then she felt darkly—“That crowd who are
+staring after me, scornfully and pityingly—are my kind. We have ties in
+common, I belong to them. But I am cutting those ties and going with
+these others, with these strangers with whom I also have something in
+common. But it is a common destiny, not merely a common existence. For
+they understand not merely suffering but passionate grief and passionate
+love. They are not merely ardent, but jealous, not merely active, but
+impetuous. No, I do not belong to you! I hate you, I despise you! You
+and your kind! Olga Radó has killed you for me. I no longer belong to
+you. But since I must belong somewhere, I shall try to belong with these
+others.”
+
+She entered Mara Luigi’s room as tensely and determinedly as if she were
+entering a new life.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mara Luigi had to snatch something from nearly all the chairs before she
+could offer her visitors a seat. She tossed an armful of all kinds of
+articles on the bed and said, “There you are, my children, be seated!”
+
+Miss Lorenz, a slender, well-dressed, blondined girl with a pretty,
+expressionless doll’s face threw herself among the cushions on the divan
+and took a big teddy bear affectionately in her arms. A chap named
+Kramer, a slight, fair-haired young fellow, with the face of a child who
+has known too much too soon, struggled for a place on the divan. But
+pretty Miss Lorenz opposed him so vigorously that her slim kicking legs
+in their thin silk stockings were visible above her knees.
+
+A grave and sickly looking man, who was not, strictly speaking, a member
+of this circle, since Myra had often observed him in friendly
+conversation with the other party, silently moved up a chair for Myra.
+She was standing irresolutely in the middle of the room.
+
+Myra smiled her thanks to him, somewhat confused, and sat down.
+
+Meanwhile young Kramer had encountered so powerful a blow that he
+scrambled down from the divan with a howl of pain and sat on the carpet
+where he remained, refusing to be elevated by force or entreaty.
+
+Mrs. Breslauer, a buxom lady, with strikingly painted eyebrows, had
+discovered a corset of white tricot under a heap of other things on the
+bed, and she must absolutely know whether it was made in mass production
+or whether the famous Fischer had “created” it and how much it had cost.
+
+Giesbert, a young painter, a slender, good-looking fellow, wrenched the
+corset from the lady’s hands and danced through the room with it. Mara
+Luigi rushed after him. She had caught up her short little skirt in her
+left hand, her right was clutching after the artist. When Giesbert held
+the corset on high, she jumped on a chair to reach it. When he hopped
+back and forth on the far side of the table, prepared to change his
+direction any moment, she did the same on the other side. Her comb
+clattered to the floor; curls and strands of hair danced around her
+face.
+
+Myra grasped the arms of her chair tightly and shut her eyes for a
+moment because she felt herself becoming dizzy.
+
+“So this is ‘life,’” she thought. “I must accustom myself to it.”
+
+The ugly, sickly looking man, who had been standing behind her chair,
+said in an uncommonly gentle and pleasant voice, “You are a stranger
+here, are you not?”
+
+“Yes,” said Myra with a helpless sort of smile, “rather.”
+
+She scolded herself for being petty and narrow-minded, but she could not
+help feeling that it was easier to get along in one of those stiff and
+conventional gatherings where the hostess felt obliged to look after a
+strange guest. She did not wish to be noticed, did not wish to play a
+part. She would gladly have attended this promiscuous gathering of the
+clans as a nonparticipating spectator—but a quite invisible one.
+For—quite mistakenly—she felt that everybody was staring at her and
+thinking rather uncomfortably that this serious, embarrassed and silent
+young lady did not belong. She was very grateful, therefore, when the
+strange and not very congenial looking man spoke to her, grateful that
+she could turn to him occasionally, if only so that the others might not
+think that she was waiting stiffly for somebody to befriend her.
+
+The ugly man bent forward slightly. “My name is Eccarius,” he said.
+“We’ve been invited here very kindly, but unfortunately they’ve
+neglected to introduce us to one another.”
+
+He smiled, and his smile was so kind, so indulgent that it captivated
+Myra at once.
+
+“You shouldn’t say that,” she said, prepared to be indulgent on her
+side, too. “We can get along somehow this way.”
+
+She mentioned her own name.
+
+“May I?” He drew up a chair beside her. “Of course, we can get along, my
+dear Miss Rudloff! We are hidebound by too many outworn conventions. I
+envy these children their ease. They skip and frisk about, speak
+familiarly to one another, sharing all their secrets, and never dreaming
+how difficult it is for one of us to bridge the gap from individual to
+individual.”
+
+By the word “us” Myra felt she had been recognized. No matter what pains
+she took, they realized that she was a stranger to this circle. She was
+not quite sure whether it was for better or for worse.
+
+The pretty Giesbert was dancing before the large mirror. He had put on
+the corset over his gray jacket and was trying to pull it shut.
+
+“My best corset!” screamed Mara Luigi in a rage. “You’re going to ruin
+it! You’re a beast! Take it off, I say, take it off!”
+
+“You don’t need it,” said Giesbert laughing, “don’t try to act as if
+you’d ever worn one!”
+
+He pinched her sides which caused her to squeak loudly.
+
+Myra would not have admitted even to herself that she felt offended by
+his tone.
+
+“How splendidly young these people are,” she said smiling at Eccarius.
+“I feel quite old and sour beside such children.”
+
+“Children ...” repeated Eccarius with a strangely reserved expression as
+if his eyes were turned inward, “yes, perhaps—children....” Then he
+glanced at Myra again with his frank expression and his kindly smile.
+
+“You must have had a very happy childhood.”
+
+“Yes,” said Myra with complete conviction.
+
+Myra recalled that she had learned to know struggle, unhappiness and
+suffering very young, that she had felt real hatred for Aunt Emily who
+had managed her upbringing with so much righteousness and so little
+understanding, that she was aware at an early age what it means to be
+jealous. And it seemed to her as if that period, a period when she was
+not yet quite ten years of age, no longer belonged to her childhood.
+Childhood had been those few years when a stream of happy love had
+bubbled up from her heart and had flowed forth without distinction
+toward whatever trees, animals, persons or dolls happened within range
+of her feelings.
+
+At the moment when this stream of love had had to force its way over
+obstacles, when it was dried up in places which it had formerly
+enriched, leaving nothing but arid indifference or a swamp of hate—at
+that moment the idea of childhood seemed ended for Myra.
+
+“Yes,” she said, again fastening her gaze on Eccarius, “a very happy
+childhood, but not a very long one. I have a feeling that I was awakened
+before most children—not that I was mature, I don’t want you to
+misunderstand me—I am not mature even today....”
+
+“Who is?” asked Eccarius with his gentle smile.
+
+“But I believe that I was awakened earlier than other children from the
+bliss of unconsciousness.”
+
+“That is too bad.” Over his grave and clear gray eyes a veil, as of
+profound grief, seemed to be drawn. “It is a great pity, a great, great
+pity.”
+
+Involuntarily Myra looked surprised, but he made an effort to explain
+his sympathy.
+
+“You know whenever I see happy children, I always want to build walls
+and ramparts around them, so that they will remain as they are, will
+remain so for a long, long time. It is dreadful to think that one
+poisonous breath can change all the happiness of these little creatures
+into horrible pain.”
+
+“Let him keep them,” cried little Kramer from his place on the floor,
+“let him keep them, if he can’t bear to part with the corsets! Every man
+has his passion, and there must be people who find corsets quite
+diverting.”
+
+“You swine!” said Miss Lorenz and kicked his shoulder.
+
+Giesbert had picked up a tulle hat with egret feathers and clapped it on
+his head. With one hand he held the corsets together across his stomach,
+with the other he clutched anxiously at the hat with every step, to keep
+it balanced.
+
+“I’m going to wear this to the artists’ ball,” he announced in a tone of
+triumph, “I’ll be a sensation!” Suddenly he passed into falsetto. “Oh,
+no! I’ll be the fairest maid of all! Sugar-daddy will give me an
+education. If only I knew what for! I have so frightfully many talents!”
+
+“Yes, yes,” cried little Miss Luigi meanwhile and skipped into the air,
+“the artists’ ball at Sophus’! Stand still a minute, you loathsome
+little darling! Tell me seriously, what are you going to wear? A costume
+or what? Come, put those things down, Giesbert, else you certainly won’t
+get a single glass of brandy!” She stamped on the floor for emphasis.
+
+Giesbert pretended a terrified trembling and quaking while his knees
+shook as he put the articles on the bed.
+
+Mara laughed and brought the bottle of brandy from the closet.
+
+“I have only two glasses! Ring, will you, Erich?” she commanded.
+
+“Oh, what’s the use,” said Miss Lorenz indifferently, without rising,
+“we’ll drink one after the other. If Emma brings glasses in here, she’ll
+report that we’re holding an orgy.”
+
+“All right.” Mara Luigi rinsed the glasses in the wash-basin. She
+reached for a hand-towel, and Myra was somewhat shocked, thinking she
+was about to dry the glasses with it, but she merely wiped her
+finger-tips. She filled the glasses to the brim, and offered the first
+to Myra.
+
+“Do you know what, Miss Rudloff?” she asked as she stood before her,
+“you must come with us tomorrow night, you really must.”
+
+“I?” asked Myra frightened. “Where?”
+
+“To the artists’ ball, of course! Probably you’ve never been to a really
+truly artists’ ball in all your life. But you must see one.” Myra did
+not feel the slightest inclination to accept. She even regretted having
+accepted the first invitation, instead of remaining in her room where
+she could shut out every disturbing sound, and take refuge from her own
+thoughts in quiet and clever books.
+
+“But I don’t know the persons who are giving it at all,” she said
+helplessly. “Isn’t it strange?” she thought. “At home I should certainly
+have said, ‘The people,’ and have been sharply reprimanded by Aunt
+Emily. And here where ‘persons’ will be sure to strike everybody as
+affected, Aunt Emily’s good teachings burst forth for the first time in
+full flower.”
+
+“Don’t know whom? Sophus and Nora?” asked Giesbert, checking his crazy
+behavior for a moment and speaking like a rational human being while,
+still out of breath, he smoothed his hair. “You don’t know them? Then
+you certainly will have to go there tomorrow for it’s high time that you
+did know them! A pair of splendid women, two of the most remarkable
+people I know! Would anybody like to take exception to that? If so, I
+challenge him to put on the gloves immediately.”
+
+He rolled up his sleeves, drew his head between his shoulders, and bared
+his teeth.
+
+“You need have no qualms about going,” said buxom Mrs. Breslauer in her
+somewhat unctuous voice. “I was lugged up there the first time
+positively _sans façon_, and was received charmingly, isn’t it true,
+Marakin, they were really perfectly charming.”
+
+“Yes,” laughed little Kramer, “I really believe they never meet anybody
+except as their guest!”
+
+“Is Gisela coming for us, or shall we see her there?” asked Miss Lorenz.
+
+“Gisela,” thought Myra, “so she’s going to be there, too. I’ll really
+have to do it. The only alternatives I have are to bury myself like a
+hermit, or to take advantage of every opportunity to meet people and
+learn to know the world and human beings. Gisela! Here I sit trying in
+some way to meet her, and when I’m asked to make her acquaintance in the
+easiest way in the world, I haven’t the slightest desire, but only fear
+and shyness and aversion and a feeling that I’d like to creep away
+somewhere and be quiet.”
+
+Eccarius must have read the inner struggle on her face. He bent forward
+slightly. “I think you can venture it,” he said in his very soothing
+way. “You will find a rare bouquet of people there. They will certainly
+distract and may even interest you. There are some really worthwhile
+characters among them. And if it becomes too lively for you, I shall
+undertake to bring you home at any time you wish.”
+
+“So you will be there, too?” asked Myra, relieved.
+
+He nodded.
+
+“Yes, then I believe I can ‘venture it.’”
+
+
+
+
+                                   XI
+
+
+While Myra was dressing to go to the artists’ ball, she was not
+conscious of any effort to beautify herself in order to attract
+attention, to please, to cause sensation. Indeed, she desired to attract
+as little attention as possible, and would have given a good deal to be
+invisible, or to watch the hubbub from a gallery or a darkened adjoining
+room.
+
+She selected a very simple black taffeta dress quite void of color or
+boldness of line. Nevertheless, she could not prevent something striking
+in her appearance. Perhaps it was caused by the anticipation which
+flamed up in the depths of her lifeless eyes and which was in such sharp
+contrast to the gentle, almost colorless composure of her pale face.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+As Myra took off her coat in the vestibule of the little villa and was
+at once surrounded by a throng of persons in fantastic costumes, and a
+throng of noises, her immediate thought was of escaping. She looked for
+little Mara Luigi who was raising waves of people about her. Perhaps no
+one would notice if she asked for her coat again and slipped quietly out
+the door. She glanced about, weighing the chances of flight, and
+encountered the eyes of Eccarius who stood directly behind her.
+
+“Look around a bit first,” he said soothingly as if he had divined her
+thoughts, “and if it’s too much for you, give me a sign and I’ll take
+you home. I have no intention of staying here till daybreak myself.”
+
+The rooms were large and bright, and so full of noisy people that Myra
+grew dizzy. A thin, bluish pall of smoke hung over the groups and spun
+in rings around the lamps. Faces stood out, impressed themselves on
+Myra’s mind, sharp and yet unreal, like visions in a fever—then
+disappeared again.
+
+Eccarius remained at her side, pointing occasionally to someone whom she
+could not discover in the throng, or mentioning some name that she did
+not understand or could not catch because it had no meaning for her.
+
+A tall, slender, beautiful girl passed them in a sort of page’s costume.
+Eccarius called to her and she stopped and greeted him. Myra had an
+opportunity to observe her. She wore black silk knee-breeches, white
+stockings, a jacket with lace cuffs, and had secured her dark, curling
+hair in a great black knot at her neck. Her features were clear and
+regular, a high and beautifully modelled forehead, and an almost
+challenging, free and bold expression which captivated Myra at first
+glance. She seemed to perceive that Myra did not feel quite at home in
+that tumult. She took her by the hand like a child.
+
+“Come,” she said, half to Myra, half to Eccarius, “I’ll take this little
+girl to Nora. She is always ‘the pole of repose in the flux of
+appearances.’ You’ll feel much better with her. Good Lord!” She took
+Myra’s chin in her hand and turned her face to Eccarius. “Doesn’t she
+look like a little child on its first day at school? Come, baby; you
+shall have a place of honor.”
+
+She forced her way through chattering, noisy groups. Everywhere the
+beautiful woman was called to, stopped, embraced, greeted, questioned.
+With a patience and affability that never altered she always managed to
+release herself again, but it took a quarter of an hour for Myra and her
+to cross two rooms.
+
+At the end of the second room was a raised alcove on which, towering
+above the other chairs and a table with a charming cover, stood a
+Renaissance easy-chair, with high and very beautifully carved arms. In
+this arm-chair, standing out against its strawberry-red brocade as
+against a painted background, sat a very fair woman, dressed in white,
+softly flowing white veils over her shoulders, a soft white covering
+over her knees.
+
+Myra was astounded at first sight by the beauty of this vision. On
+closer inspection she perceived that the woman in the chair had passed
+her fortieth birthday, that she was too buxom to be beautiful, that age
+and sickness had ravaged and obscured the once pure lines of her face.
+But the next moment, as Myra held her warm, matronly hand, and felt a
+smile of indescribably warming cordiality and kindness envelop her, she
+forgot all about beauty or ugliness, and surrendered without reserve to
+the mild fascination of this personality.
+
+“Here, Norina.” The slender page laid her arm lightly across Myra’s
+shoulder. “Take this little girl under your protecting wings. Else
+she’ll be lost in the hubbub.”
+
+Something in the words, the solicitude concealed by a gentle irony,
+recalled Olga so vividly that Myra wanted to howl like a whipped dog.
+She no longer seemed to see the bright room with its throngs of people
+and strange faces as through panes of glass. They seemed to crowd in
+upon her, somehow to break through those glass casements which she had
+set about her life. It was all too much after the silence and solitude
+of the last few weeks. She felt herself in a condition not unlike a
+violent attack of fever.
+
+Myra had to smile when she saw a shade of concern pass over the fair
+face of the woman while the room seemed whirling about her. She felt a
+chair moved against her legs while she was forced to her seat by gentle
+but firm hands.
+
+She was sitting on a low chair close beside the high arm-chair.
+
+“There,” said the dark-toned voice behind her. “Now if it’s too bright,
+or too loud, or too gay for you, just lay your little head against the
+arm of my chair and creep under my veil. That’s what I always do.”
+
+Obediently, Myra nestled her cheek against the arm of the high chair and
+felt the veil being drawn over her head. A gentle scent of mignonette
+emanated from the soft, filmy silk.
+
+Nora turned to Myra. “You mustn’t imagine that it’s always as gay here
+as it is tonight. You must come sometime when we are more intimate, more
+quiet. We have a nice little garden which is our real joy. Just as long
+as it is possible, we take tea out there and love to have someone keep
+us company.”
+
+“Yes, when the flag is up!” laughed the young person on the step,
+turning with a jerk. “You ought to know that we do here as at court.
+When their majesties are at home, the flag is hoisted!”
+
+“You ought to explain, Will,” Nora amended, “just how it is done. On the
+roof of the arbor there is something like a little flag-staff _en
+miniature_, with a gay little pennant on it. You can see it from all
+sides, even in front, if you are passing the house.
+
+“But if Sophie has to work very hard, or I am not feeling particularly
+well, we haul in the little flag. Then no one, at least none of the
+initiates, needs trouble to come to the door simply to be turned away.
+For, of course, that’s always painful to both sides. For those who have
+to interrupt their work or control their illness, and are disagreeable
+hostesses anyway; or for those who feel like disturbers of the peace. If
+they are really turned away, they usually think, ‘Well, they might have
+made an exception in my case,’ or, ‘They did not have to have the maid
+tell me.’ Most of them are habituated to the lie they tell themselves:
+There is no one at home. That someone should be working never seems a
+sufficient excuse for them.
+
+“But all our friends know that I never leave the house and Sophie very
+rarely. So the little flag is there to avoid any unpleasantness. When it
+is unfurled that means, ‘Please come in, we’re expecting you.’ Then
+there’s no need even to come through the house, for everyone who wishes
+can enter by the garden-gate, or if it should be locked can jump the
+hedge, eh, Will?”
+
+But Will had sprung up and motioned with his hand without even glancing
+back, for he was staring intently into the room where a circle was
+gathering around a dancing couple.
+
+“Fiametta is dancing,” he called back, with a hasty turn of his head,
+“the woman is marvellous! You must see her!”
+
+Quite youthful in his impetuousness, he seized Myra by the elbow and
+dragged her from her chair to the step.
+
+“I ask you, have you ever seen anything like that in all your life?
+Isn’t she dazzling? Isn’t she perfect?”
+
+In the rather narrow circle which the crowding spectators had left free,
+a slender, well-built young man was dancing with a woman of refined
+beauty and great charm. She was so perfectly at one with the music that
+its tones seemed to emanate from her supple body.
+
+She had a manner of dancing such as Myra had never before seen. Her
+movements were gentle, cool, subdued, noble and almost solemn. At the
+same time it seemed as if the beautiful girl consumed a vast reserve of
+strength in compelling her symmetrical body to maintain its dignified
+repose, as if it would have required only a moment’s forgetfulness for
+that bridled temperament to leap up like a flame, for those soft,
+relaxed muscles to turn to steel and impel her sinewy body through the
+air, like a wild beast springing on its prey.
+
+Myra felt a kind of painful, burning sensation at the sight of her, and
+when she sought, with her habitual honesty, to account for it, she
+decided that it was envy. A thousand appraising glances could never
+embarrass this woman: it would have been no task for her to cross a
+crowded dining-room to her table.
+
+“Isn’t she marvellous?” said the young man beside Myra, aglow with
+enthusiasm, “isn’t she fascinating? Isn’t it just as if she stepped out
+of another century? Out of a century when there were still beautiful
+women, beautiful women who left the stamp of their personality on their
+environment, the courts, the city, the arts!”
+
+Myra nodded silently. She would have been glad had he kept silent, too,
+for she wanted to know what was being said behind her. She could hear
+Nora’s quiet, gentle voice.
+
+“Certainly, she is very beautiful, Ulrich. She has breeding, temperament
+and culture, everything one could wish, but she is a little strange to
+me, and a little strange she will always remain. Perhaps it will sound
+very silly and sentimental to you if I say that she has no heart. But I
+really believe that she has not even the most elementary sort of
+kindliness....”
+
+Myra could not catch what Ulrich might have objected. But she heard
+Nora’s reply.
+
+“No, Ulrich, I cannot agree with you. A woman without kindliness is
+something without charm, without fragrance for me, no matter if she is
+as beautiful as your Fiametta. Oh, yes, I know you have a foible for
+her, and forgive in her everything that you would never forgive in
+another. Of course, no one is obliged to love simply because she is
+loved by another. But then one should not arouse feelings in others if
+one has no use for them....”
+
+“Oh, that! Yes, she does do that! And not in one case only—in hundreds
+of cases. And she keeps right on doing it! She completely ruined poor
+little Miss Bernhardt, she drove Erwin half mad, and she’s destroying
+Gisela now—for the mere diversion!”
+
+At the name of Gisela Myra started. So this was the woman for whose sake
+Gisela’s life was being destroyed—poor Gisela! Oh, Myra knew only too
+well that it is possible to be destroyed for a woman’s sake! Her heart
+burned with anger and pity, with painful recollection and a desire to
+help, to alleviate, to save.
+
+She had not another glance to spare for the beautiful woman. Her eyes
+sought Gisela, and found her on the opposite side of the room, her
+shoulders hunched over, the inevitable cigarette between her lips,
+staring into space with an expression of complete abstraction. Myra
+chose a moment when Mara Luigi was approaching Gisela, to turn to Nora
+and excuse herself.
+
+“If you will pardon me, I should like to say a word to Miss Luigi.”
+
+Nora’s tone seemed to veil a mild astonishment. “Ah, you know her? Are
+you friends?”
+
+Myra felt a sudden redness invade her cheeks and forehead.
+
+“Yes.... No ... that is, we stay at the same pension,” she said somewhat
+embarrassed.
+
+She forced a path for herself along the walls, fearing all the while
+that little Mara would have stopped talking to Gisela by the time she
+reached her. She felt that she was committing a deed of great daring.
+She had a feeling, almost of homesickness, for the low seat beside the
+soft, concealing veil; she thought of herself as a half-fledged bird
+that has abandoned its nest to make a flight into the world.
+
+But a fierce impulse drove her forward.
+
+“I must not be a coward,” she thought, “I will have my destiny and I
+will go forward to meet it. I will open my arms and bear with joy
+everything that is meted out to me. I will love life no matter what it
+brings.”
+
+The sweet, hot dance melodies quivered through the air. They seemed to
+force Myra’s steps to fall into their light and fiery rhythms, while her
+thoughts kept iterating like the refrain of a song, “I will love life, I
+will love life.”
+
+When Myra stood before Gisela and Mara had mentioned names and made a
+gesture of presentation, there was that strange feeling again—“What is
+the purpose of it all? What will happen now? We have been introduced,
+that is, we know one another’s names, the series of letters whereby we
+are listed in official registers, and that gives us the right to talk to
+one another. But nothing gives me the right to utter what I am thinking.
+If I were to say, ‘I wanted to know you because you make me feel so
+dreadfully sorry, because Mrs. Meidinger has told me that you take
+morphine in order to deaden your grief, your sorrow over a woman, and
+because I understand you so well and would like to try to help you, or
+at least be unhappy with you’—if I said that to her, they would shut me
+up in a lunatic asylum. And quite rightly, for if I were in a normal
+state of mind I could never bring myself to say such things.”
+
+“I believe that I have seen you before,” said Myra with a reserved
+smile, half to Gisela, half to Mara Luigi. “Weren’t you at the pension
+recently?”
+
+“Yes, of course,” Gisela’s dark eyes were fastened on Myra. “That’s
+where I saw you, too. That’s why your face looked so familiar to me.
+Come on and sit down beside me, there’s still room.”
+
+“Thanks,” said Myra and smoothed her taffeta dress before she sat down.
+
+Again she felt a slight anxiety because she thought that it was her duty
+to say something, something, too, that would lift her above the
+average—but she couldn’t think of anything.
+
+Gisela was not so easily embarrassed in beginning a conversation. “You
+know little Luigi from the pension, don’t you?”
+
+Myra nodded.
+
+“She brought you here, didn’t she? You haven’t got anything to do with
+art and such awful things, have you?”
+
+“Unfortunately, no,” said Myra.
+
+“Unfortunately? Thank God and your most honorable parents that you have
+a decent occupation.”
+
+“But I haven’t any.”
+
+“Haven’t any? That’s the most decent of all.”
+
+“Are you serious? I think it’s dreadful not to have any occupation.”
+
+“Why dreadful? Having an occupation means being paid for work. Taking
+money from somebody, that means being subservient to somebody, whether
+it’s an individual, or a company, or the public. Being at the public’s
+beck and call is the worst of all! If you have no occupation and don’t
+need to have one, then you’re your own master! That is to say, you’re
+not anybody else’s servant. Why is that dreadful?”
+
+“I don’t know.” Myra wrung her hands with a gesture of helplessness.
+“Perhaps because then we don’t belong anywhere. Home has no meaning for
+us any more. I was born and brought up in the city. But does that give
+me any feeling of home? Yes, perhaps, if I were in Tokio and heard
+someone from the city talking I might discover some such feeling in
+myself, and might even become sentimental with him, when we thought of
+Potsdam or Linden. But just think how ridiculous it would be if we
+addressed somebody in Lucerne or Baden-Baden with ‘I believe you come
+from my native city!’
+
+“We have no families any more either! Or we have no use for them.
+Sometimes I envy the old noble houses with their hundreds of branches,
+each linked by name. But above all I envy people who have an occupation,
+for every cobbler has connections with every other cobbler, cabmen have
+something in common with all other cabmen, physicians have their
+colleagues to help them in almost every village on the earth. The
+artists are like one big family, especially theatrical people. And
+sometimes—I don’t know if you will understand the feeling—it seems to me
+that it must be good to be chained quite firmly to something—so that one
+will not plunge into the abyss.”
+
+“Oh, I understand it all right.... Have a cigarette?” She offered a
+narrow birchen case. “Only, I don’t altogether believe in this
+fellow-feeling of fellow-workers. No more than I believe in blood
+relationships. The greatest stranger in the world to me is my own
+sister. No, no, the same kind of education, the same kind of
+interests—they have about as much to do with people’s feeling for one
+another as the same kind of incomes.”
+
+“But one must feel one belongs somewhere,” Myra objected, bewildered.
+
+Gisela shrugged her shoulders wearily. “Yes, if you want to feel happy,
+to feel secure. But our best emotion is probably a fellow-feeling for
+our fellow man. Only, it is in very rare cases that we ever discover who
+he is. And what else is there? Sometime I think that people who have
+suffered the same misfortune, the same sickness should band together.
+The blind, the lame, the hunchbacked.”
+
+This was approximately what Myra herself had previously thought. But
+when she heard it uttered by someone else, it roused her opposition.
+
+“I don’t think,” she said reflectively, “that I would like to see myself
+surrounded by my own infirmities, especially if they were exaggerated or
+distorted, any more than I’d like to see myself in a mirror if I were a
+leper. At bottom it always pleases people more to hide their infirmities
+and keep them as inconspicuous as possible. And I don’t believe either
+that the ailing are especially sympathetic to one another! Everyone says
+to himself, ‘He’s a much worse case than I am!’”
+
+A young man came up to Gisela and embraced her with a girlishly gentle
+and fawning gesture.
+
+“You must sing something for us, Gisela,” he pleaded, “please, please,
+be nice!”
+
+She shook her head without answering, knitting her brows a little.
+
+But he did not release her and begged like a child. “Oh, please! Do be
+nice! Only for a few of us, one tiny little song!”
+
+“My lute isn’t here, John.”
+
+“Oh, you can use Sophus’, but come!”
+
+With gentle coercion John tugged her from her place. His narrow face,
+sensitive features and delicate bloom of color were almost angelic in
+their beauty. His fair, gently waving hair was a little too long, his
+big dark blue eyes too soft, almost ardent in their expression.
+
+Despite his surprising beauty, Myra thought his exterior almost
+repellent. But after a few moments she decided that it was really his
+costume which disturbed her, because it suited him so little. In a white
+tunic, in a silk doublet with puff sleeves, even in a gold embroidered
+rococo jacket he would have been a perfect picture.
+
+Gisela, still tightly embraced by his arm, held out her hand to Myra.
+“Come with us, little girl,” she said. “I can’t promise you any great
+enjoyment, but I’ll be flattered if you’ll listen to my croakings.”
+
+Myra seized the outstretched hand, letting it draw her along. It was a
+slender, feverishly hot, ruinously thin hand that clasped her fingers in
+a loose, but tenacious grip.
+
+Somewhere in the distance she saw Eccarius’ face emerge. He did not even
+glance at her, and yet his grave and worried face seemed a reproach to
+her.
+
+“I suppose I ought to pay some attention to him.” A slight feeling of
+fear, then her defiance blazed high. “But why should I? Why must I
+always be talking obligations into myself which really aren’t mine? From
+now on I’ll have regard for no one, I’ll go where I feel attracted—and
+only where I feel attracted!”
+
+In the small adjoining room a dozen people were sitting, lying and
+crouching in the most varied postures. Sophie was there in her becoming
+page’s costume. Beside her was the young man called Will who had sat on
+the top of the alcove step, little Mara Luigi and the painter Giesbert,
+who was wearing a kind of cowboy costume, and Ulrich, the man with the
+grave, haggard face, and deep minor voice.
+
+Someone lifted Gisela’s slight, light figure and set it on a table. John
+took the lute from Sophie and laid it in Gisela’s arms.
+
+A young person in a silk Pierrot’s costume who was dashing about with a
+tray of glasses, offered one to Myra. Myra drank down the sweet and
+fiery wine at a draught, in order to be rid of the glass, and found
+herself searching for a seat.
+
+Sophie extended her hand to her. “Come here to me, little lost bird,”
+she said. “No one will hurt you here.”
+
+“I’m not afraid,” said Myra smiling.
+
+And she really was not. She felt quite content and well concealed in the
+deep, soft silk cushions between two faces that did not seem strange or
+unpleasant to her.
+
+Little John with his page-like grace seated himself at her feet. And
+although she felt no particular liking for him, she enjoyed his slightly
+cuddling touch.
+
+Gisela tuned the strings, her head bent low. Her loose black hair fell
+about her cheeks. With a sudden toss she raised her head, shook back her
+hair, and after a few opening chords began to sing.
+
+   Somewhere
+   A voice is calling through the dark night,
+   A voice that makes me tremble.
+
+   Somewhere,
+   On their hot couch, hot hands incite
+   My longing hands to tremble.
+
+   Somewhere
+   A heart weeps quietly for the right
+   Against my own to tremble.
+
+Her voice was small as if muffled by a veil, but the deeper tones
+especially had a passionate, enthralling ring. Myra felt as if she were
+caught in the web of a sweet, dreamy happiness that was, nevertheless, a
+painful longing.
+
+Sophie had put her arm around her, and now and again her hand kept time
+to the music by stroking Myra’s shoulder gently and soothingly.
+
+Sometimes Gisela’s eyes sought out Myra while she was singing. Their
+glances met, were fixed one upon another, and it seemed to Myra as if
+Gisela were singing every word to her. “Sweet life,” she thought,
+“beautiful, beloved life!”
+
+She felt a feverish longing that filled her heart to overflowing. It was
+a longing without name or object. It was a longing for distant lands, a
+longing for affection. It was a longing for glittering fame, for heroic
+deeds, and a longing, too, for grandmother’s quiet garden, for the
+meadow over which the bees hummed.
+
+   Your sad and silvern soul
+   Draws its last gasp in blood.
+   Alas, that it stands sole,
+   Alone, by me unfound.
+   For your soul will be drowned,
+   Will plunge beyond control,
+   Sink, drown in burning blood—
+   Since my cool hand has never found
+   Your brow to still the fevered flood.
+
+A shade of almost sorrowful gravity passed over Sophie’s beautiful,
+cheerful features. She smiled, but it seemed as if her smile were
+steeped in melancholy.
+
+“Wait a moment.” She motioned to Gisela with her hand. “I want to get
+Nora. You know how much she loves to listen to you.”
+
+She rose abruptly. John sprang up at the same moment. “Can I help you?”
+he asked, it was a plea.
+
+Myra thought his words sounded mysterious.
+
+Sophie and John did not enter the large hall-like room from which they
+had come. Sophie opened a glass-door behind a curtain which gave upon
+the night-darkened garden.
+
+“Leave it open a moment,” she begged. “It is so warm outside. We’ll be
+back this way.”
+
+Gisela hesitated. Some interior struggle was reflected in her mobile
+features.
+
+“Sophie,” she called, springing down from the high table, “would you
+rather that I came with you? I can sing in the next room just as well.”
+
+“No, no,” said Sophie. She was standing on the step and had lifted the
+two parts of the curtain so that they framed her slender figure for a
+moment. “It is so crowded and smoky in there, and dusty from the
+dancing, and one can’t make the whole crowd listen quietly. Besides, I’m
+glad to have a good reason for enticing Nora out for a while. She’d
+never decide to come herself, and if she doesn’t, the evening will be
+too much for her.”
+
+She nodded gratefully to Gisela and vanished in the darkness. Through
+the half-open door, streamed the manifold fragrances of the night and
+its flowers.
+
+Over the little circle lay an expectant silence. Those who were sitting
+side by side made observations in hushed voices. Gisela strummed her
+lute without raising her eyes.
+
+The murmured conversation presently grew louder and somewhat more
+lively, only to subside entirely when heavy steps were heard crunching
+the gravel in the garden. Then the most intimate friends of the
+household began to talk rapidly again in a fashion that seemed to say:
+“We were not waiting for you, we shall pay no particular notice to you
+when you come.”
+
+Involuntarily Myra glanced at the garden-door, and though she instantly
+controlled herself, she started and felt that she had turned pale.
+
+They were leading, they were dragging Nora in.
+
+Sophie was supporting her on one side, John on the other. But they could
+not raise her heavy upper body; it sagged forward as if it were bent,
+broken. With an effort Nora raised her head, and her soft brown eyes,
+filled with silent suffering, like those of an injured animal, met
+Myra’s for a second.
+
+Ulrich moved up a chair, Will set down cushions for her feet; an instant
+later she was sitting in her easy-chair, her hands laid upon its arms,
+her knees, which were drawn up a little higher than most people’s,
+covered by the lightly flowing folds of her silken veils, her fair head
+laid back upon a violet-colored cushion. Again a picture of almost
+queenly beauty.
+
+Not unless one observed closely, was a slight twitching discernible
+around her mouth and cheeks—from pain or the unusually violent exertion.
+
+Myra’s heart was quite filled with contradictory feelings. She felt a
+terror that verged on horror and even aversion; an anguish of sympathy,
+but at the same time, a fear as of dark veils falling, of a slowly
+settling, unbearable burden.
+
+Had not life been simply bright and gay and alluring? Had she not loved
+it with a hot, longing, ardent, sacrificing love? And was it not now as
+if a fiery and flexible dancer, the swaying of whose arms had
+intoxicated her, suddenly had torn the mask from his face, and with a
+mocking grin pointed to a fleshless death’s head?
+
+What was there in the world after all? What could one expect from life?
+Misery and affliction, sickness and death, and bitter, freezing
+solitude....
+
+Gisela plucked several chords and began to sing.
+
+   Somewhere
+   The alarm rings dull and heavily.
+
+   Somewhere,
+   It says, home-going tolls for me.
+
+   Somewhere
+   The long white roads lead well away;
+
+   Somewhere
+   Will lead me home to earth, some day.
+
+She bowed her head lower over her instrument. It was strange how the
+tones found their way out of her restricted breast.
+
+Everyone was silent when she had finished.
+
+Will was the first to speak. “More, more,” he cried. “Another, another!”
+
+Others shouted after him. Gisela slipped down from the table and laid
+the lute in a corner. Her weary movements were those of a child, but her
+face, which was always narrow, had become old and small.
+
+“I believe I cannot sing any more,” she said, as if asking forgiveness.
+Her voice was no more than a hoarse whisper.
+
+Through the door of the adjoining room came an elderly fat man with an
+ugly, bloated face. Inside, someone was thumping the piano, but it could
+hardly be heard for the noise and laughter and the shuffling of dragging
+feet.
+
+The fat man seized little John around the body with a firm grip. “Come,
+Johnnie boy, we’ll dance,” he cried and pulled him about in a circle.
+John swayed from his hips like a coquettish girl. Myra observed for the
+first time that above his small and narrow foot in its low-cut
+patent-leather pumps, he was wearing open-work silk stockings.
+
+Suddenly she loathed him. She loathed the fat man. She loathed Gisela
+because her face looked old and sick and worn out. She loathed Will
+because he spattered wine down Mara Luigi’s low-neck dress, and then ran
+his hand down her back on the pretext that he was drying her. She
+loathed Mara Luigi because she was pleased by the performance although
+she shrieked and kicked and struggled.
+
+Myra felt a terrible longing for the peaceful solitude of her own room.
+
+Giesbert was standing before her, asking her to dance with him. She
+pressed with both hands against his arms which were seeking to clasp her
+and carry her away.
+
+“Please, don’t,” she said, impatient but pleading. “Don’t, don’t,
+please, I don’t like it!”
+
+Suddenly, after she had released herself and was swaying a little
+dizzily, her glance came to rest on Eccarius’ face. He approached her
+with a gentle smile, and involuntarily she extended her hand to him.
+“I’m so glad you’re here,” she would have liked to say. “I want to go
+home!”
+
+Then it occurred to her that she had no right to command him as she
+would a servant, when she had not given him a thought the whole evening.
+
+But before she had found anything to say, he spoke himself. “You look
+tired, Miss Rudloff. I don’t want to hurry you, if you still wish to
+stay here. But if you would like to go, simply say so.”
+
+Myra was heartily grateful to him, although she had again been almost
+shocked by his ugliness as he suddenly appeared before her.
+
+She was not entirely satisfied with herself. It must be her own fault
+that she was always seeing ugly and pathetic things everywhere. Probably
+she was not strong enough for life, not healthy enough, not stupid, or
+perhaps not wise, enough.
+
+Everywhere life had angles and edges, points and sharp corners. Wherever
+one groped among the rosy, shimmering clouds that so beautifully
+enveloped them, one was struck and hurt. One had to be a cobble-stone or
+a diamond not to be shattered by their hardness.
+
+She walked after Eccarius in an almost stony silence. Let him think what
+he would of her! She was tired and upset, angry and dispirited. She had
+no desire to torment herself further with a laboredly indifferent
+conversation.
+
+Eccarius allowed her time to cool her feverishly hot forehead in the
+night air. She gazed up at the bright flames of the stars and again, as
+always, felt the need to spread her folded wings, to launch herself at
+last, at last into the infinite; so impatient was she that her heart was
+depressed, her breathing labored, and there was an aching against her
+ribs.
+
+Finally, after a long time, she heard a quiet voice beside her utter
+what seemed to be the last link in a long chain of thought.
+
+“You will do me a great favor, Miss Rudloff, if you do not pass judgment
+upon your hostesses and their house because of this evening’s rather”—he
+hesitated—“rather turbulent festivities. You must sit out there in their
+garden with them some quiet afternoon and talk with both ladies. I am
+quite certain that you might gain much by it, and it would be a pity if
+tonight’s performance had spoiled your taste for it.”
+
+Myra felt as if she had been looked through and through and was a little
+ashamed.
+
+“Oh, of course not,” she said with some embarrassment. “I was really
+very charmed by both ladies. I am simply not accustomed to such noisy
+society. Ah, I am really not accustomed to sociability at all, and there
+were simply too many and too varied impressions for me. I am suffering a
+little from a _carrousel feeling_, if you can imagine what that is.”
+
+“Oh, yes,” Eccarius laughed softly. “I imagine that it is mostly
+dizziness and nausea.”
+
+“Not only,” said Myra, “but music too, music that keeps droning on, and
+a lot of gaiety and a lot of light, a mysterious and fascinating
+gaiety—pearl-bespangled, dazzling decorations behind which mysterious,
+alluring, weird things are concealed—the driving power, the machinery,
+the engine. And out of the darkness appear single brightly illuminated
+faces that keep vanishing and reappearing. But above all, above all is
+the impression of a longed-for pleasure that has been tasted till one is
+sick and tired of it.”
+
+“That’s all right then.” Eccarius smiled as if his thoughts were already
+somewhere else. “You did not know that Nora is an invalid?” he inquired
+after a pause.
+
+“No,” said Myra. Then, half involuntarily, as if driven by a sense of
+guilt for which she somehow hoped to atone, she said, “Oh, she made me
+feel so terribly bad!”
+
+“She has had a very sad life,” said Eccarius, rather reluctantly, “but
+in spite of that, I would not say that she makes me feel bad. Somehow I
+wouldn’t dare say that. It would seem almost presumptuous of me. There
+is so much about the woman that compels one’s admiration, so much that
+is superior to us, so much that one can almost envy, that pity, in my
+opinion, hardly enters into the case.”
+
+Myra felt that his remark was worded very discreetly in order that she
+might understand, though not too harshly or emphatically, that she had
+said something stupid. She was grateful to him for his considerateness,
+for it hurt her dreadfully to be corrected by anyone.
+
+“At any rate, I will make every effort to know her better,” she said
+with a hearty determination. “I believe that there is much to be learned
+from her, and there is nothing I need more in this world than to learn.”
+
+“It is already a great deal simply to know that,” said Eccarius with a
+smile. “Most young people of twenty think they know enough. If you
+always pick your instructresses with as sure an instinct, you can’t go
+far wrong.”
+
+“I hope so.” Myra knitted her brows. Fear again cast its shadow on her
+like a cloud, fear of making a misstep, of becoming bewildered, of
+straying into treacherous morasses, of walking into an abyss—courting
+disaster in some form or other.
+
+“In any case, I won’t have to suffer any long-drawn death,” she thought,
+“when my shattered limbs are lying at the bottom of the abyss. Then
+there will be nothing left for me but Olga’s bequest—my friend, the
+revolver!”
+
+
+
+
+                                  XII
+
+
+For the third time during one of her walks, Myra suddenly found herself,
+on that corner in the suburbs, on which stood Sophie’s little house. But
+this time she did not turn quickly in the opposite direction. Instead,
+she walked down a street flooded with late autumn sunlight, quite bathed
+in whiteness except for the thin tremulous shadows cast by the delicate
+plumage of the young mountain-ashes.
+
+Myra no longer remembered the number, but it would not be difficult to
+discover the house. It must be the third to the right. Yes, the
+garden-gate bore a rather striking name-plate, and above the arbor the
+little pennant was hanging limply in the motionless air.
+
+Myra’s heart beat somewhat faster as she opened the little grille-gate.
+She was as embarrassed as she had been as a child when she had to go to
+strange houses and knock on strange doors. If she walked right into the
+garden they would stare at her in some surprise. No one would remember
+her name, no one would recall her face, they would ask her what right
+she had to force her way in here. Oh, she would create a very painful
+situation for herself and others.
+
+It would certainly be better to climb the short flight of steps to the
+front entrance and give one’s card to the maid. Then they could bundle
+her off with a polite remark if they no longer remembered her.
+Hesitantly, she retraced a few steps.
+
+But they must already have seen her, or heard the crunching of the
+gravel—a blonde head appeared behind the house.
+
+“Ah, Miss Rudloff!” Little John literally sprang forward to meet her.
+And for the first few moments she forgot all that she had heard about
+him, all that she had thought about him, and was captivated by his
+boyish charm, by the lightness of his movements which were like a
+dancer’s.
+
+“How nice of you to come! No, no, right this way, there’s no need to go
+through the house. We’ve spoken of you frequently, wondering where you
+were. Nora will be frightfully glad to see you. Sophus still has
+something to do, but she’ll be down any moment.”
+
+He led her past a green wall where the first plump beans were hanging
+between countless red and white flowers. In the narrow beds phlox and
+asters were a riot of dazzling colors. They were surrounded by a
+golden-green border of fragrant mignonette. In the big hexagonal arbor a
+cozy tea-table was spread.
+
+Myra also experienced a slight unconfessed fear of meeting Nora again.
+Now she was almost gratefully surprised by her beauty and by the
+commanding nobility of her movements. Nora was so accustomed to her
+ailment that it never even occurred to her to make an attempt to rise
+only to have to sink back helpless and pitiable in her chair. She sat a
+little stiffly and very regally, extending her hand to Myra with a
+winning smile.
+
+Beside her sat Ulrich Zeeden, who in his haste to spring up and come out
+from behind the table imperilled the tea service, which caused both John
+and Myra to clutch frantically at it. The result was a merry confusion
+which got them over the first few moments of what might have been
+painful formality, and the conversation became general and lively.
+
+In a few moments Sophie, too, emerged from the house with a long, quick
+stride. She greeted Myra very cordially, demanding a cup of tea “right
+away.” She insisted on drinking it standing, only to let them force her
+into a chair where she chatted for a quarter of an hour, declaring
+anxiously every two minutes, “Oh, children, the light is forsaking me, I
+must get back to work!”
+
+When she finally dashed off, she turned at the house and called back,
+“If you’ll just wait there until I’m through, I’ll have another hour of
+joy tonight. I’ve worked so hard today.”
+
+“You forgot to add, ‘at my mournful occupation,’” John laughed after
+her.
+
+“Yes, at my mournful occupation,” she called from the door.
+
+“Why mournful occupation?” asked Myra, puzzled.
+
+“She always says that she’s next in line after the undertaker and the
+funeral parlor,” John explained. “She makes gravestones.”
+
+“Oh, that really is mournful,” said Myra, endeavoring to assume a slight
+smile so that they would not think her exaggeratedly sentimental. The
+words “grave” and “death” were always a stab of pain to her.
+
+“One accustoms one’s self to death,” said Nora gravely, “as to
+everything else. And that is well. One becomes a little brutal—which is
+a very good thing for us hyper-sensitives. We come to feel as much at
+home among urns and sorrowing angels, as a coffin manufacturer at the
+sight of a coffin, or a physician at the sight of a wound. When one has
+as much to do with death as Sophie, and through her I, death loses all
+its horror, and one comes to see the humor in tragic situations. Ask
+Sophie, she will tell you some stories of her profession.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nora took her needle-work from a little basket beside her, and asked
+John to call the maid to clear the table. John begged like a child to be
+allowed to do it himself, and skilfully and carefully removed all the
+dishes. When he returned, he sat silent for a long while, his longing
+eyes fastened on Nora’s flying fingers.
+
+At last, he could restrain his childish desire no longer, and he
+stretched out his hands. “Oh, please, please, let me stitch a little,
+too!”
+
+With a smile Nora handed him the sewing and searched her basket for some
+crocheting with which to keep her own hands busy.
+
+“Gracious,” cried Myra, “that wonderful hemstitching! Aren’t you
+afraid?”
+
+“Oh, no,” Nora assured her, “John can sew quite as well as I.”
+
+“I can, can’t I,” said John, a blush of pride mantling his cheeks. “I
+should have been an expert embroiderer or a miniature painter. I have an
+inexhaustible patience for such things. Otherwise, I have no patience at
+all.”
+
+He bent his head over his work so that his wavy blonde hair fell over
+his face. His slender, almost too well manicured hands moved with charm
+and precision, setting stitch beside stitch.
+
+It was an astonishing scene. Involuntarily the thought flashed through
+Myra’s mind, “Thank God, he’s not my son. If he were, I think I’d tear
+that embroidery from his hands and slap his ears with it. And yet—he
+looks like a painted angel or a saint.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+John had to go before Sophie returned. He waited for her until the last
+moment, then said a hasty, but cordial, good-bye, and leaving many
+greetings for Sophie, dashed off.
+
+Ulrich Zeeden gazed after him, shaking his head.
+
+“A strange little fellow,” he said.
+
+“A heart of gold,” added Nora with a slight note of defense in her tone.
+“We’ve grown so used to him here, we can hardly get along without him.
+He’s really like a loyal little page, always anxious to please and be
+kind—ah, much more than that, he’s inexhaustibly good-hearted and
+self-sacrificing.”
+
+“Yes, there are some really fabulous rumors of his good-heartedness
+going the rounds.” The corner of Ulrich Zeeden’s mouth twitched a little
+contemptuously.
+
+“There _are_ many rumors circulating about him—unfortunately,” Myra
+burst forth. She felt her cheeks burning with embarrassment, but she was
+determined, now she had spoken, to defend her cause courageously. “It
+looks so ugly, so gossipy, to discuss someone the moment he has turned
+his back. But because he’s your friend and because I think he’s very
+nice, it makes me angry when people say horrible things about him, and I
+have absolutely no right to tell them to hold their tongues or to punish
+them for their lies.”
+
+“Would you do that?” asked Ulrich Zeeden. “It would be very courageous
+and really friendly of you, but in most cases I’m afraid it wouldn’t be
+very successful. For whatever horrible things may be said, they are
+certainly surpassed by the horrible things that are done in private, of
+which no one has any idea.”
+
+“Is that true?” Myra turned imploringly to Nora.
+
+“Ah, my child,” she said comfortingly, “it is much too complicated and
+bewildering for one to be able simply to say yes or no. But there’s no
+reason to have such a desperate look in your eyes. Good and evil are so
+intertwined that one can never hope to disentangle them and balance one
+against the other.
+
+“But I will tell you one thing, for I know very well what Myra means by
+horrible things, and you, too, Ulrich. You mean the affair with
+Drencker. People say and you know that it is true, Ulrich, and so do I,
+if I must be candid—that Drencker has bought the little fellow body and
+soul, so to speak; that he has furnished a charming apartment for him,
+that he supports him, ‘provides’ for him, as they say. That Drencker
+does not do all this simply to rid himself of his millions in a good
+cause, all of us know. And that our good John has not attached himself
+to this, to put it mildly, decidedly unpleasant gentleman, like
+Alcibiades to Socrates, for the purpose of drinking wisdom from his
+lips, but merely for a pecuniary advantage, is also obvious.
+
+“Nevertheless, when one looks a little deeper, one discovers something
+that atones for all these horrible facts. Ever since he was a child,
+little John has felt a great and unswerving love, or rather a kind of
+devout infatuation, for a school-fellow of his who possesses everything
+which he himself lacks—manliness, self-assurance, a somewhat brutal
+quality. This childhood devotion became an utterly unselfish, utterly
+idolatrous friendship. Now it happens, that the other boy possesses
+decided talent, which further compels John’s admiration. Neither of them
+had any money. John had probably never thought of himself as worth very
+much—he sold himself, sold himself with open eyes and very dearly, too,
+in order to enable his friend to study, in order to be able to support
+him in this way.”
+
+“And Will Kraft allowed him to do that? You mean he acquiesced in such a
+thing?” asked Ulrich Zeeden sharply, drawing out his words.
+
+Nora shrugged her shoulders slightly. “I did not mention any names.”
+There was a trace of bitterness in her gentle voice.
+
+“What has Will Kraft allowed? What has he acquiesced in?” Sophie’s deep
+resonant voice suddenly rang out close beside them.
+
+“We’ve been slandering your friend, Sophus.” Nora smiled up at her.
+“You’ve come just in the nick of time to defend him.”
+
+“Defend him if you can,” said Zeeden in a harsh, censorious tone. “Will
+Kraft has allowed a young, immature and rather unstable young man, whose
+friend he is supposed to be, to sell himself to satisfy the unnatural
+lusts of a beast in human form, and has accepted the purchase price. To
+me that is about the lowest thing that anybody could do—just as I find a
+whore-master a good deal more contemptible than a whore.”
+
+“Indeed!” Sophie drew up a chair and sat down. “I’ve let you have your
+say, now you let me have mine. In the first place, instead of ‘beast in
+human form,’ you might say ‘human in beast’s form’—though that has only
+incidentally to do with ‘my friend’, Will Kraft. But I can muster a few
+points in his defense, too. Notably, that he has talent, not to say
+genius, and that talent always and under all circumstances has the right
+to achieve its object. Because work alone is of value, not life. Least
+of all the moral life of the individual.”
+
+“That is a matter of opinion,” interrupted Zeeden, “nevertheless,
+continue!”
+
+“But even if he were without talent, if he could create no work of any
+value, whom is he injuring? The possibility is given him to work, as he
+imagines, and as I imagine, for human culture. He is happy. Still
+happier is old Drencker, who finds himself at the goal of all his
+desires, having at last escaped the danger of blackmailers and
+extortioners, and even robbers and murderers, whose life is no longer
+embittered by the fear of prison, and who for the first time is
+beginning to feel the blessedness of those millions that all his life
+long have been only a curse to him.
+
+“But the happiest of all is undoubtedly our little John. He is desired,
+pampered, idolized. He sees his beauty, which incidentally he knows very
+well how to prize, in the right setting. He spends half the day seated
+before his three-leaf mirror, admiring himself, and coddling himself
+with salves and powders and hair tonics. Do you mean to tell me he is
+doing all that for Will Kraft’s sake? Don’t imagine it! He would do
+exactly the same thing without Will Kraft! No, not exactly the same, for
+he certainly has a better side, a tendency to idealism. He would do it
+remorsefully without Will, and be disgusted at himself. But since he can
+expend a portion of the sums which are earned by him (for a person of
+his nature really without effort) on someone whom he adores, he can view
+himself in quite a transfiguring light. He can do just what he pleases
+and be a martyr and a saint into the bargain!”
+
+Zeeden moved his hands as if he were clapping an inaudible applause. “A
+beautiful speech, dear Sophus! Hearing your explanation, makes it
+bearable. But there’s a flaw in it somewhere. I don’t know just where.
+Perhaps it’s in defective Christianity again. But I think Nora is
+shivering, it’s time that we went into the house. The evenings are
+already quite cool.”
+
+Myra rose. “Yes, and it’s high time that I went home, too. I intended to
+stay for a few moments and I sit here hours and hours.”
+
+“Bosh!” said Sophie, remaining quietly seated, and staring up at her
+almost as if surprised. “That sounds like a _façon de parler_. Why do
+you want to go? Have you something better in mind? Or did somebody once
+tell you that a first visit should never last more than twenty minutes?”
+
+“Yes, somebody did tell me that!” laughed Myra. “I think those are the
+very words my Aunt Emily said to me.”
+
+“And do you mean to say that you have the damnable intention of carrying
+out all your Aunt Emily’s precepts? I thought not, well, don’t try them
+on us! Whatever aunts tell you, you should _eo ipso_ do the reverse! So
+you’ll stay and eat with us. The only excuse is the well-known
+‘something better to do.’”
+
+“There’s nothing that I’d like to do better in all the world.”
+
+“Poor child—well, there will be.”
+
+Sophie rose and drew herself up energetically. “I can feel my muscles
+today! Come, Norina, let’s make things bright and comfortable inside.
+It’s already decided that you’ll remain, Uli.”
+
+Zeeden bowed in silence.
+
+With one powerful push, Sophie moved the table aside to clear the way
+for Nora. With a sudden resoluteness which she herself could not
+explain, Myra pressed close to the invalid.
+
+“May I help?” She thought they must hear the throbbing of her heart in
+her voice.
+
+“Oh, thank you so much—I will be too heavy for you.”
+
+“Not at all, I am very strong. And if one does not need any particular
+practice, believe me, it would gratify my ambitions! I could feel that
+there’s something in this world for which I am useful.”
+
+“That is an unanswerable argument,” said Sophie. “Will you call Martha,
+then, Ulrich? Or will you be good enough to carry the chair yourself?”
+
+Zeeden had already picked up the chair.
+
+“Really, why don’t you have a wheel-chair?” he asked.
+
+“Are you going to ask me that, too?” Sophie flung angrily over her
+shoulder. “Because this lady must walk! And she can do it very well,
+too. She has the soundest pair of legs in the world. But she’s too vain.
+If she weren’t, she could walk for miles.”
+
+The pressure of the invalid’s arm did not weigh unbearably on Myra’s
+supporting hands. And the feeling that she was helping overcame her
+horror to such an extent that even pity disappeared. This gentle woman’s
+desperation over her ruined hampered body had long ago been dispelled,
+so that her life now knew only its good and bad moments like every one’s
+else. With more good and less bad, perhaps, for her illness shielded her
+from the fiercest attacks of base natures; she almost never left the
+house, in which she was treated as a queen, while no one who was not
+filled with the friendliest of feelings, ever came to see her.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+As they were sitting together after the meal, over a cup of tea and
+cigarettes, Gisela suddenly appeared. Myra could not decide just what
+she felt when she first saw her. She was glad that Gisela had come. At
+the same time she was disturbed at the idea of being jolted out of her
+comfortable repose even by a pleasure.
+
+For the first time Myra endeavored to isolate the cause of that
+disturbing quality which everyone felt in the presence of Gisela. She
+was not noisy, not even particularly talkative. She would sit without
+ever stirring from her place, staring in front of her. And yet it seemed
+as if the atmosphere around her vibrated.
+
+Myra felt this vibration in every nerve, felt her quiet repose being
+more and more encroached upon by this burning, prickling, disquieting
+sensation.
+
+It began to seem to her as if the smiling resignation on Nora’s face
+were merely a mask behind which the cruelest despair was at work.
+
+It seemed to her as if Sophie bore up in vain, with the strength and
+repose of a caryatid, against the intolerable burden.
+
+It seemed to her as if Ulrich Zeeden’s deliberate manner cloaked a
+ceaseless torturing struggle.
+
+It seemed to her as if Gisela were as consumed by pain and sorrow as a
+house in which the flames are raging, and whose blackened walls threaten
+at every moment to crash into complete ruin.
+
+And it seemed to her as if she, Myra, were the most unfortunate of all
+these unfortunate creatures since Olga was dead and she was left alone
+in the world. In a world, too, filled with strange, menacing,
+pain-bringing, terrifying things.
+
+Suddenly she wanted to go home because it seemed to her as if her
+hostesses were struggling against their weariness out of a sense of
+politeness.
+
+Zeeden and Gisela left with her and they walked without speaking for
+some time. Zeeden broke the long silence to address himself to Myra, and
+to Myra only, “May I take you home, Miss Rudloff?”
+
+“Thank you very much,” said Myra, “but only provided you live in that
+neighborhood. I am not at all afraid of going by myself.”
+
+Gisela leaned forward in order to speak past Myra. “Don’t put yourself
+out in the slightest, Herr Zeeden. And it would put you out a great deal
+if you had to go into the city again and then return to your lodgings. I
+will take Miss Rudloff home. Besides we’re going the same way.”
+
+Myra hesitated a moment, wondering whether she ought to protest this
+arrangement. It displeased her to have Zeeden think she had declined his
+escort in order to be alone with Gisela. But if she asked him to go with
+her now, Gisela would be offended. She said nothing, telling herself
+with a quiet defiance that people’s opinions were and must be
+indifferent to her.
+
+Zeeden took leave of them at the next corner, though somewhat more
+stiffly and formally than usual.
+
+“Do you like him?” asked Gisela when he was scarcely out of hearing.
+
+“I hardly know him.” Myra shrugged her shoulders.
+
+“He certainly likes you.”
+
+“Why?” Myra laughed between her teeth.
+
+“Why? He likes all the women I like. That’s why he can’t bear me,” she
+added quickly, almost hurriedly. “That is to say, he’s unlucky with all
+women, and has never been able to free himself from one dreadful
+specimen.”
+
+“How is it possible for him not to free himself from a dreadful woman if
+he feels in himself the capacity for loving others?”
+
+“You ask me?” Gisela shrugged her shoulders noncommittally. “They say
+that she used to beat him till he bled and that he can’t live without
+that! But he may have some other mania which she pampered, too. After
+all, what does bind people together? The fact that one of them knows the
+other’s concealed manias, and fattens them and coaxes them forth and
+fondles them and trains them to turn against their former master like a
+mad dog.”
+
+“And you mean to say that that is the crux of all human relation?” asked
+Myra sadly, much perturbed. “What kind of eyes do you see life with?”
+
+“With unclouded eyes,” said Gisela and laughed bitterly.
+
+“And Sophie?” asked Myra, “and Nora?”
+
+“Sophie’s mania is called Nora. And she is the happiest person I know
+because she can concentrate completely on her mania. As for Nora? What
+goes on in her mind, nobody knows. I don’t even know if she is happy or
+not.”
+
+“I don’t know if she can be happy,” said Myra dejectedly. “It must be
+dreadful always to have to take, never to give.”
+
+“She knows that she gives a great deal,” Gisela contradicted.
+“Everything for Sophie! Sophie became a human being for the first time
+the day Nora went to live with her. She was lazy and idle and slovenly
+and lived on cigarettes, alcohol and cocaine. We tried time and again to
+shake her out of it—but it did no good.”
+
+“And Nora,” asked Myra with bated breath, “was she sick then?”
+
+“When she came here? Yes, of course—I think she had made an attempt on
+her life. She married a syphilitic and had a feeble-minded child, or
+something like that.”
+
+“World, world,” thought Myra, “where can I fly from you? I’d rather be
+dead and sleep in one of Sophie’s beautiful, rose-garlanded urns! How
+can I, all by myself, ever stand all that makes up human destiny?”
+
+They walked along in silence for a time, each plunged in his own
+thoughts.
+
+“Do you know, Myra Rudloff, that I have a mania of my own?” Gisela asked
+suddenly; her voice was softer and more vibrant than usual.
+
+Myra was frightened. She was afraid of confessions. “Good God,” she
+thought, “here comes the morphine! What shall I say to her? I can’t help
+her in any way.”
+
+Gisela did not wait for an answer. “My mania,” she said, in a soft,
+hovering tone, without glancing at Myra, without turning her head in her
+direction, “is to love beautiful, pure, regal women—always those who are
+above me, those who are too good for me, who in my own opinion are too
+good for me. Women like you, Myra Rudloff!”
+
+They had reached the house and stopped. Myra was racking her brain in
+torment for a reply. She could think of none. She gave her hand to
+Gisela, shyly, and said, “I thank you.”
+
+The corner of Gisela’s mouth twitched in a hurt, ironic smile. “What
+for?”
+
+“For bringing me home—and for everything, for what you have just said,
+too.”
+
+Myra’s heart was throbbing as if it would burst, but only from a kind of
+embarrassment. She would have been glad to retract her words. Perhaps it
+would have been more tactful if she had pretended not to hear or not to
+understand.
+
+Gisela turned her head away with an impulsive, rather irritated
+movement. The light from the street lamp fell on her face; it looked
+wretched, sorrowful, almost decayed.
+
+“Perhaps it would make her happy if I kissed her,” thought Myra. “It is
+sad enough, but it can’t hurt anybody.”
+
+She bent forward with a slight, embarrassed smile and laid her lips
+against Gisela’s. She felt Gisela’s lips burn like a flame, open like a
+flower; sharp teeth ground against hers and were pressed into her lips.
+A small hand clasped her neck, twisted itself into her hair, would not
+release her.
+
+When Myra drew herself up again, she was somewhat dizzy.
+
+“I don’t love her,” she thought sadly, “probably she loves me, and I
+don’t love her.”
+
+“Good night,” she said, laying her hand tenderly and discreetly against
+Gisela’s cheek for a moment. It was as if she were speaking to a little
+child. “Sleep tight.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Myra intended to lie down on her divan.
+
+Though it was still early in the afternoon, she had lighted the lamp and
+drawn the curtains in order not to have to see how the endless autumnal
+rain poured down the gray walls of the buildings opposite.
+
+She had heaped up cushions and covers on the divan, moved a chair within
+reach on which was a pile of books. The afternoon would be long and she
+wished to have no cause to get up again. Neither did she want to drown
+herself hour after hour in one book. So she had collected a half dozen
+books with the pleasurable foretaste of a gourmand preparing himself for
+an exceptional repast.
+
+On the little glass-topped table at the head of the divan, she set
+cigarettes, chocolate and a vase with a few pale pink, pungent
+carnations that she had bought in town.
+
+But no sooner had she lain down, drawn a light cover over her feet, and
+reached for the topmost book when there came a knock on the door.
+
+“Why didn’t I lock the door,” she thought for a moment in vexation. “If
+I had, I would certainly never move. Whoever is there could rattle it as
+much as he likes.”
+
+But when in response to her “Come in!” Gisela opened the door, she was
+really glad.
+
+“Oh, how nice it is here!” cried Gisela before she had even said good
+day. “No, for Heaven’s sake, don’t jump up from there, or I’ll run right
+off again. You’ve made yourself so nice and cozy, don’t let me get you
+up. I was going to see Mara Luigi, but she isn’t home, and I wanted to
+have a look at your room. Heavens, how spick and span we are—my room
+never looks like this even on high holidays.”
+
+“If you don’t want me to get up,” said Myra with a smile—she was resting
+on one elbow, the cover in her other hand, still in the act of springing
+up—“you’ll have to come here. Otherwise I’ll have to put on the light
+and settle you solemnly in an easy-chair.”
+
+“No, no, I’m coming.” Gisela ran to the divan, pressed Myra back against
+the cushions and drew the cover up about her chin.
+
+“Do you want to go to sleep, my love? Shall I sing you to sleep and then
+steal out on tiptoe? Sleep, little baby, sleep!” She knelt on one knee
+on the divan, clasped Myra about her shoulders and rocked her to and
+fro.
+
+Myra experienced a slight and not at all unpleasant dizzying sensation.
+
+“Don’t,” she said with her eyes closed, “I’m getting dizzy.”
+
+She felt the rocking movement stop, and at the same time a gentle
+breath, and soft lips brush very lightly, very tenderly, over her
+forehead, her cheeks, her eyelids.
+
+It was pleasant, but she resisted this pleasant sensation.
+
+“I don’t love her,” she thought obstinately. “I did not desire her
+lips—this is the way an animal must feel when it is stroked.”
+
+The soft lips ceased to brush her face and Gisela crouched down on the
+divan. Quite irrelevantly she pointed to the flowers. “Who sent you the
+lovely carnations?” she asked.
+
+Myra turned her head to follow Gisela’s gesture with her eyes.
+
+“I did,” she smiled.
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“What do I mean? I bought them myself this morning.”
+
+“That’s strange!” Gisela shook her head. “Are you expecting a visitor?”
+
+“No, why?”
+
+“Because that would be the only reason I’d ever buy flowers for my
+room.”
+
+“In fact, I bought them because I expected to be alone.”
+
+“It’s very nice of you not to say ‘because I hoped....’”
+
+Myra smiled. “Well then, because I feared I would be alone.”
+
+“That’s just a polite lie,” said Gisela. “Anyhow, I’m thankful that I’m
+at least worth a lie to you. For I think you don’t lie very often.”
+
+“I don’t know.” Myra reflected seriously. “I think that I lied a good
+deal as a child, at least as long as I was in the hands of my mentors.
+But it was cheerless and unimaginative living. I never had much talent
+at thinking up interesting tales. It was more a kind of denying, very
+persistent and obstinate.”
+
+“Lying and denying—there are worlds between. You are quite right. But
+when a child denies, everybody says, it’s lying, or it’s deceiving. And
+all the while it’s probably just ashamed, or stubborn, or bewildered. I
+was treated so terribly when I was a child. Why don’t you have children?
+You’d certainly make a fine, understanding mother.”
+
+“I’ve never thought about it.” Myra shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve always
+imagined that every mother is good and understanding. But that may very
+well be because I never knew my own mother.”
+
+Gisela laughed bitterly. “I wish I’d never known mine either!”
+
+Myra was shocked and seized Gisela’s hand. “It sounds dreadful when you
+talk that way! Was she so bad?”
+
+“Bad? Oh, no, not just bad.” There was a note of forced lightness in her
+voice. “She was a worthy, efficient, excellent woman. Too worthy and
+efficient for my father. He left her and two years later hanged himself.
+And since I resembled him (naturally I couldn’t do anything about it;
+after all, she chose him for a husband, I didn’t choose him for a
+father)—but because I resembled my father’s family, my mother felt that
+I was hereditarily tainted in advance. You know, there are people—and my
+mother was one of them—who are so moral that they sniff immorality
+everywhere. We had to sleep with our hands outside the quilt, and if we
+forgot in our sleep, and my mother came in to check up, she’d tear the
+covers off the bed. I swear, I never once knew why she did it.”
+
+Myra did not know either, but she did not ask, because she was ashamed
+to confess her ignorance, and furthermore she suspected that an
+explanation might be painful.
+
+“That was the beginning.” Gisela sprang up and began to pace restlessly
+to and fro, with noiseless steps, on the thick carpet. “And it went on
+that way. At fourteen I had my first rendezvous. It was with a boy from
+dancing-school, a little fellow who was, if possible, more innocent and
+idealistic than myself. When this transgression came to light, I was
+subjected to a terrifying inquisition. Had we kissed, did we put our
+arms around one another, and when and where and how. These possibilities
+were first brought to my attention in this way....
+
+“The same thing at school. Near the school there was a stationery store
+where we used to buy our copy-books. The man had picture post-cards in
+his window—among others a nude woman, the reproduction of some
+masterpiece or other. A terrible case was made out of that post-card.
+Investigation finally brought out which of the girls had stood in front
+of the shop-window. Parents and pupils together descended on the
+shop-keeper and forced him to remove all offensive pictures from his
+window. It became a real sport with us to buy pictures of nudes—during
+the Bible reading they circulated under the desks with inscriptions and
+observations. The contagion spread to the whole class, but they had
+first been inoculated with the virus, and at considerable pains, too.
+
+“In a few among us, perhaps in many, there may have been a painfully
+repressed, immature sensuality. But children are by no means as
+shameless as adults—they are much more afraid of being shocked. But the
+general discussion of the ‘immoral picture’ removed all obstacles. Now
+everybody talked to everybody else about ‘it.’
+
+“I resisted. I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. It may be
+that I resisted out of timidity, because I felt that this thing, which
+was just a joke to the rest of the children, might become fate to me. Do
+you know how children act in such cases? Oh, so cruelly, so lustfully,
+so sadistically! Because I resisted, I was pursued, the whole class was
+in a conspiracy against me. I had to see what I didn’t want to see, hear
+what I didn’t want to hear, do what I didn’t want to do. I was driven to
+a pass from which I never again escaped.”
+
+She folded her hands and wrung her fingers so that the bones cracked as
+if the thin wrists were going to snap.
+
+“No, how can anybody buy herself flowers like that?” she said suddenly,
+standing before the carnations. “Why do you do it? Were you thinking of
+somebody to whom you wanted to give them? But didn’t—perhaps, well,
+because you happened to be put out with one another just then?”
+
+“I have no one in the world to whom I might give flowers,” said Myra
+bitterly, “unless it is a grave, and that’s too far away.”
+
+She did not know herself how she came to say it. She blushed violently
+at the thought that she was opening her heart, an error which she
+forgave in others with a certain condescending indulgence, but which she
+hated so intensely that she would be upset for weeks if she caught
+herself at it.
+
+But perhaps it was not even a need to open her heart. Perhaps it was
+worse. Perhaps it was the desire—though still quite unconscious—to drape
+herself with this holy, destructive sorrow, to endow herself with a new
+mystical charm in the eyes of this ... this....
+
+It seemed as if Gisela divined the feeling. She had started as if she
+meant to throw herself upon Myra, to overwhelm her with sympathy and
+comfort and affection—but checked herself and sat hunched over on the
+end of the divan, her head bowed, her hands folded.
+
+“Promise me one thing,” she said softly with a quality in her voice as
+of joylessness which nothing could ever animate again. “When I am dead,
+put flowers on my grave. Not at my funeral and not a large bought
+wreath.
+
+“I like to imagine how I’ll receive visits, how I’ll lie there and
+sleep. I love graveyards so—generally those that are a little run down.
+I don’t want any well-groomed gaudy grave—but a gray stone, half sunk
+already and half overgrown with ivy. Then the beautiful woman in the
+white dress who stops before it will think of me for a moment, not with
+grief, but with a gentle melancholy, and will strew a handful of flowers
+over me. I’ll feel them, oh, make no mistake, I’ll feel them!”
+
+Myra sat up and taking her by both shoulders, shook her.
+
+“Child!” she said. “Are you asking _me_ to do that? I’ll hand on the
+commission to my grandchild! By the time that stone has sunken on your
+grave, my ashes will have long been scattered by the wind.”
+
+“How long does it take a stone to sink?” asked Gisela in such a
+comically impatient and plaintive tone that Myra laughed aloud.
+
+“But you’re not dead and buried yet,” she said consolingly.
+
+“Unfortunately,” Gisela said in a lifeless voice but with suddenly
+flashing eyes. There was bitterness in the words.
+
+Again Myra felt a slight aversion. “She has no right to say that,” she
+thought. “She certainly can’t have suffered so terribly.... But then,
+who can estimate what gives another the right to desperation? Perhaps it
+is much harder to struggle against one’s self than against fate.”
+
+Her objection melted and she felt only a warm but helpless pity. With
+timid hands she began to stroke the soft, tangled, dark hair from the
+white forehead before her. Those burning eyes were shut, while on that
+narrow face appeared the expression of quiet, yearning bliss.
+
+As Gisela sat motionless, without breathing, as if her pulse had stopped
+in her veins, Myra experienced a weird sensation.
+
+“Open your eyes,” she commanded in a frightened voice. “I suppose it’s
+this devilish violet light, but you look like a marble death mask.”
+
+The long lids opened heavily. The wide-open eyes were a lightless deep
+abyss to which life and vision returned gradually.
+
+“Believe me, little Myra,” she said with her soft ailing child’s voice,
+“I will soon be dead.”
+
+“What do the words ‘be dead’ mean to you?” asked Myra timidly.
+
+“A deep, cool, undisturbed repose.” She closed her eyes, and immediately
+her face resembled a marble mask again.
+
+“Eternal rest. Even in my childhood the words were like a melody, a
+sweet mysterious seductive song. I heard it the first time when I was
+quite small and had no ideas about it. It was a characteristic
+expression of my mother. This or that person had gone to his eternal
+rest. And it has never forsaken me, I have always longed to go to my
+eternal rest.”
+
+In her high voice was a sustained disembodied tone.
+
+There was a sparkle and glitter under those dark eyelashes that were
+like shadows on her face, and several pearly drops trickled down.
+
+Myra kept both her hands clasped around Gisela’s blue-veined temples.
+
+“No,” she said, without herself knowing what that “no” might mean. “No,
+no, no!”
+
+The lids were raised like a curtain, and the tear-filled eyes in which
+the light was refracted, seemed larger and more burning than ever.
+
+“No,” said Gisela. “No, no, no! Still no eternal rest, little Myra,
+sweet, beautiful little Myra! Life streams from your finger-tips, life
+flowers from your lips, life gleams from your eyes. I feel as if I were
+already dead, and you were saying to me: ‘Arise and walk!’ Oh, how hard
+it must be to rise up and leave a cool and narrow coffin because it
+pleases some miracle-maker!
+
+“I am dead, little Myra, I have died of a mortal sickness that is called
+Fiametta. If you would bewitch the dead, little sorceress, you must
+nourish them with your own blood, but that you know. If I am to live, I
+must imbibe your blood.”
+
+The slender hands fastened like talons in Myra’s shoulder, forcing her
+back on the cushions. Supine above her, lay Gisela’s light muscular
+body, close to her own hovered Gisela’s white face with the burning
+eyes.
+
+Fear, horror, aversion, pity, tenderness and the infatuating throb of
+her own and another’s blood, whirled in a mad maelstrom that engulfed
+all thought in its brightly foaming depths.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XIII
+
+
+Myra was glad to get out on the street. The keen east wind and the rain
+mixed with hail cut her face and felt good to her. She walked so fast
+that Gisela found it too difficult to keep up.
+
+She felt as if she were being grievously insulted on all sides, and as
+if she might avenge herself by letting the rain lash her as she hurried
+through the cold dark night.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Myra and Eccarius walked down a street that echoed with the cold and was
+feathered with a fine frost.
+
+“Did you wonder,” asked Eccarius, “why I spoke so ostentatiously about
+my friends at the table? It was because I have had a little dispute with
+Miss Peters. Miss Peters is really a splendid person, but somewhat
+strict in her judgments. Or I should rather say, is somewhat limited in
+her understanding of things. What she doesn’t understand she tosses all
+together into one pot and damns eternally. And among such understandable
+things, of course, is included a friendship like that of Sophie and
+Nora. She flung about words like abnormal and perverse and unnatural,
+and intimated that it was no place for you!”
+
+“For me?” Myra was astonished. “How on earth did you come to be talking
+of me?”
+
+“To be quite frank, we began with you,” Eccarius explained with a laugh
+that pleaded for forgiveness. “Yes, yes, one never knows how important
+one is to others or what interesting conversation one makes. Seriously,
+we never know who our enemies are or who is going to pick us to pieces
+next. Conversely, we don’t know our friends either or who is looking out
+for our weal and woe.
+
+“Miss Peters has a heart of gold and she is concerned about you. She was
+explaining to me today that it is my duty to open your eyes for you. But
+if I were to open your eyes about Sophie and Nora, with the best will in
+the world I could only tell you that they are splendid people.”
+
+“Nora told me recently that she had known you a long time,” said Myra
+with a gently insistent effort to turn the conversation from herself.
+
+“A very long time.” She sighed with relief as Eccarius changed the
+subject. “I knew her when she was still the beautiful Nora Zeyern, the
+most popular of dancers, the most daring of riders! She had hundreds of
+suitors, and, out of those hundreds, of course, she had to pick
+Hersfeld!”
+
+He stopped for a moment with a bitter laugh.
+
+“He was diseased, wasn’t he?” asked Myra.
+
+“Oh, if you know that much, there’s no indiscretion in my telling you
+more. He was ‘cured’ so-called, as he used proudly to relate to anyone
+who wanted or did not want to listen to him. But not to his wife and her
+family.”
+
+“Hersfeld was an oldest son and he wanted an heir. And an heir did
+arrive, but it was covered with pimples from the day it was born. What
+that most maternal of women suffered with that child can never be told.
+And all of us, his so-called friends, we looked at the child and looked
+at one another and knew that it would never be anything else but a
+child. But not one of us dared say a word to the young mother. Meanwhile
+she hoped and hoped and cherished the unhappy little worm, rejoicing at
+the tiniest sign of progress. There wasn’t much progress to rejoice at.
+
+“At an age when other children were running around, shouting and
+crowing, he would lie on his pillow, hardly turning his head when
+someone shook something bright before his eyes. ‘He’ll be a thinker,’
+Nora said then, and smiled, a heart-rending smile. But when at four
+years he could not speak a word, and would merely utter an incoherent
+babble, she hid him and hid herself from the world. She never left her
+own house, she received no one. She shut herself and her child in the
+most impenetrable solitude. She still cherished him, played with him,
+strove tirelessly and futilely to make something human out of him.
+
+“But Mr. Hersfeld needed an heir. In another six months, the unhappy
+woman was once more in hope—Oh, God, she really did hope.
+
+“At this point a friendly doctor took the matter in hand. That is to
+say, he let fall a careless, but honestly indignant word about the
+irresponsibility of bringing babies into the world. And when she
+questioned him and would not let him go, he asked in great astonishment
+if she really did not know what was wrong with her child. And since she
+did not, he told her. Certainly he was entirely within his rights in
+doing so. But he reproached himself bitterly afterwards. For that very
+day Nora was hurt by a fall from a hay-loft, and suffered such severe
+internal injuries that she was never well again. Whereupon Hersfeld
+procured a divorce!”
+
+“Is he still alive?” asked Myra.
+
+“Why? You made a face when you asked me that as though you intended to
+kill him if he were. But you can rest easy—he is dead. He came to quite
+a dramatic end, or rather, his end had quite a dramatic beginning.
+Imagine, that man intended to marry a second time after he divorced
+Nora! A beautiful innocent young girl from one of the best families. You
+have no idea what qualms of conscience Nora suffered at that time. She
+knew the bride, she knew her parents, and she knew particularly
+Hersfeld, her former husband. But despite the fact that she knew him so
+well, she must still have loved him. Somewhere in the innermost recesses
+of her heart were still the ruins of a strong passion. And it seemed a
+crime to her to accuse the man. Besides, everybody would have called it
+an act of petty revenge. On the other hand, it would be a far greater
+crime to let the poor girl make such a marriage out of ignorance.”
+
+“Good God!” said Myra, “did she do it?”
+
+“Nora was so helpless, she could scarcely move, and the situation was
+further complicated by the fact that the girl had already been in love
+with Hersfeld while he was married, and regarded his wife, if not
+hostilely, at least with suspicion. Nora has often told me that in her
+desperate dilemma she used to pray for a miracle.
+
+“And the miracle happened. The wedding did not take place—the bridegroom
+did not appear. When they went to fetch him, he hid himself in the
+stable and began shooting with his revolver. At last he was overpowered
+and taken to an institution. He lived a few months longer subject to
+delusions of persecution and raving madness. Then he died. Softening of
+the brain. When the cause of his death became known, one of his former
+cronies observed that it was the first time anyone suspected Hersfeld of
+having a brain.”
+
+They walked on a while in silence, each wrapped in his own thoughts.
+
+Then Eccarius looked up with sudden resolution. Once more his face was
+irradiated by that fugitive, friendly smile.
+
+“But you have got me off my subject very insidiously. I’ve told you a
+long story, but not a word about what I was instructed to tell you. And
+not only instructed, what I want to tell you of my own free will....”
+
+“Must you?” asked Myra with imploring eyes. “Do you really believe there
+is anything you can tell me? I know that you mean well by me, and I am
+grateful to you for it. But I feel so strongly—perhaps because I am so
+young and have just come of age—that only I can help myself and that I
+must help myself. I know that I will not always find the best and the
+shortest way, and I haven’t even any goal, or only insofar as it may be
+a goal to want to know life whole, as far as it is possible for a woman
+to do so, its light and its shadowy sides, its merits and demerits. Just
+as one gets to know a person—whom one loves!”
+
+“If you love life,” said Eccarius with an accommodating persistence,
+“you must approach it very discreetly. And if you have no goal, or only
+the desire to see as much as possible in the paths of your own
+selecting, then you should be careful not to end up in a blind alley
+from which there is no escape. Don’t be angry with me, but I have been
+guilty of watching you on the quiet. I’ve seen you twice a day at least
+in the last two months. In the course of the years I have acquired some
+little knowledge of people, and the impression you make is not that of a
+person who loves life, but of one who is not afraid of death.”
+
+Myra was already ringing the door-bell, and she turned to him.
+
+“Is that a contradiction? Can’t one do both—love life and not be afraid
+of death? Perhaps they belong together. I will make it my motto and
+write it large over all my days and ways—‘Love life and be not afraid of
+death.’”
+
+“I know a still better motto,” said Eccarius, “it is possible to turn
+the sentence about. Then I will make it my motto.”
+
+The maid opened the door. To Myra’s questioning glance Eccarius shook
+his head slightly.
+
+“Some other time.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were sitting together in the early twilight of a winter’s day,
+Nora, Sophie, Eccarius and Myra. It was already dark in the room so that
+it was no longer possible to distinguish the features of the person
+sitting next one. But nobody wanted the light.
+
+Myra had asked after John. And Sophie told her with anger and
+perturbation that he was the victim of some very hateful gossip. Someone
+had informed his friend, the fat old Drencker, in a very ugly way, that
+his money was making it possible for young Kraft to pursue his studies,
+or rather that Will Kraft was squandering his, Drencker’s, money at
+cards and on women.
+
+Nora had defended John. Even though she saw him in no very transfiguring
+light, and his relationship with Drencker was always incomprehensible
+and painful to her, she had never ceased to believe that his friendship
+for Will Kraft was an entirely ideal infatuation.
+
+“And suppose it weren’t!” said Sophie stubbornly. “Whenever a human
+bargain is struck the buyer is to blame. The person who sells himself is
+always in extremity. And it is bad enough that it is possible for a rich
+swine like him to buy a share in a human creature. His demand to have
+him wholly and solely to himself is insolence!”
+
+“Every transaction must be honest!” said Eccarius in his gentle,
+reflective way.
+
+“No,” Sophie became excited. “Whoever buys a human being with his filthy
+money for the gratification of his base little lusts ought to be
+deceived. There _ought_ to be things that cannot be bought, that really
+cannot be bought, whether it’s love of honor or fame or talent or
+nobility—the buyer is always the first on the scene, thumping his
+money-bags and commanding, ‘I want that, do this for me, I can pay.’ It
+is not until then that the commodity appears. Do you suppose that the
+idea would ever enter the head of a poor musician to offer his songs,
+the most precious things he possesses, to a rich money-grubber so that
+they may appear under the latter’s name? No, that idea could flower only
+in the mind of a rich money-grubber.
+
+“I know many such cases—from the most innocent beginnings when the
+well-fed son of a middle class father has his poor, but talented
+school-mate compose his love letters for him for a handful of
+cigarettes—to those first nights at the opera when a gentleman takes his
+bows as the composer who has never written a line of music, and couldn’t
+write one. Ah, the world is a rather disgusting place! One can only be
+happy by having as little to do with it as possible. We sit here on our
+island, eh, Norina? And many as are the ships that touch here, they all
+voyage on again. No one may settle on our domain. For the rest, all I
+have to say is, that Drencker should be happy that his fate is not that
+of the poor fellow who shot himself a week ago because a gang of
+extortioners were slowly throttling him, and the unhappy man preferred
+to be dead than always living in the shadow of the jail.”
+
+Eccarius shook his head. “To think that this medieval punishment still
+exists!”
+
+“But there must be some protection for children and people not yet of
+age,” Nora declared, “even when those minors happen to be over
+twenty-one. There is a very true saying that where there is no accuser,
+there is no judge. When two mature people live with one another, it is
+no more the concern of any official body than is the private life of a
+married couple. Unfortunately, I must say, in most cases. Where there is
+punishment, there must first have been accusation, and where someone
+accuses, he must first feel that he has suffered an injustice.”
+
+“Paragraph one hundred and sixty-five is a cloak for scoundrels and
+extortioners,” Eccarius objected more vehemently than was his wont, “and
+no protection at all for children of whatever age. Children endure in
+silence and make no accusations. When a case does come to light, then
+the world cries out in indignation. But there are thousands of cases of
+such crimes committed against children which never see the light of
+day.”
+
+“That can’t be possible,” said Sophie, her voice vibrant with emotion.
+“In the whole world there cannot be a thousand monsters to whom a child
+is not something sacred.”
+
+Eccarius laughed, a harsh, lifeless laugh.
+
+“I will describe to you one case, one out of thousands. One case out of
+the thousands where the criminal goes unapprehended. I knew a family, a
+well-to-do and respected family, clever, kindly parents, who had four
+healthy, talented children—boys. The mother could not take care of the
+needs of four growing boys unassisted, besides it would not have been
+the proper thing to do, so they hired a maid for the lads. A
+half-educated person, as is customary, with an agreeable exterior, good
+references and all possible recommendations. This maid delighted in
+nothing more than to inform the boys of matters against which they had
+been carefully guarded. The unhappy children were thus completely under
+her thumb. They knew that they were doing forbidden things. They were
+tangled up in the terrible concept of ‘sin’ and prayed to God for
+succor. The infamous woman had an inexhaustible imagination and
+constantly invented new devices to whip up the resisting and jaded
+children. They became more and more miserable. Everything possible was
+done for them, they were sent to expensive baths—accompanied, of course,
+by their maid. From time to time, one of the boys would resolve to
+confess everything to his mother—but he got no farther than the resolve.
+Such things were too frightful to confess to the gentlest of mothers.
+Perhaps you can imagine what kind of ‘childhood’ such children enjoyed.
+Exhausted in body and soul, disinclined to play or work, in spite of
+their talents hardly able to pass through school, living in everlasting
+fear of discovery, of punishment, of sickness, of Hell—and never able to
+withstand their vices, slinking more and more like shadows through the
+days, living only in the perilous practices of the night.
+
+“When the maid left to continue her work in another family, it was too
+late. Not one of the four recovered. One shot himself the night after
+his marriage. The second remained an unhappy monomaniac and after a
+complete nervous break-down had to be taken to a sanitarium. The two
+youngest turned their backs on everything that suggested Eros. One, an
+ascetic, took refuge in a monastery. The other dragged his way through a
+drab and joyless world, shrinking from all human companionship. The
+woman is probably an esteemed children’s maid to this very day, under
+whose prudent care more charges are being ruined.”
+
+Nobody said anything. The darkness had slowly filled the whole room,
+leaving the windows hardly more than pale gray oblongs.
+
+“Oh,” said Sophie. Myra seemed to hear her voice trembling with angry
+tears, and seemed to feel her clench her fist. “She ought to be hanged!”
+
+“Then you’d have to hang a great many people,” said Eccarius quietly.
+
+Again the heavy silence weighed on them.
+
+There was a knock, somebody opened the door. A ray of light stabbed the
+darkness, a voice tore the silence.
+
+“Here is the newspaper,” said the maid, stopping in surprise at the
+door. “Shall I turn on the lights, madame?”
+
+“Yes, do, Martha.”
+
+The light was like a trumpet blast. They all bowed their heads to escape
+its glare, knitting their brows and blinking their eyes.
+
+None of them had the courage to look at the others. Sophie took the
+paper from the maid and began to read aloud, the most indifferent things
+in the world, things that could interest nobody. But all of them feigned
+interest, and everybody had something to say, so that a lively
+conversation ensued, made up entirely of trifling remarks.
+
+Eccarius left before the conversation had died down again.
+
+They continued to speak of various things after he was gone. But they
+seemed no longer able to sustain an affectedly frivolous conversation.
+Sophie had a saving idea. She proposed a game of scat so that they could
+sit together for a little longer and have something to occupy their
+minds.
+
+But suddenly, in the middle of the game, she let the hand holding her
+cards sink to the table.
+
+“He has one brother in the insane asylum,” she said as if she had been
+thinking of nothing else all the while.
+
+“I know,” said Nora just as seriously. “And another in a monastery.”
+
+
+
+
+                                  XIV
+
+
+When Myra reached home she was met in the hall by one of the maids who
+said—as it seemed to Myra, with an ambiguous and lewd smile—“Miss
+Werkenthin is waiting for Miss Rudloff.”
+
+Myra felt her heart palpitate, as it had so often of late. She walked
+more slowly, not wishing to reach the door of her room too soon. She
+felt that she must have a few moments’ reprieve. But she felt, too, as
+if the maid had stopped, and she thought that mocking, spying glance was
+stabbing her back, between the shoulder blades. So she walked quicker.
+
+It was cold outside, cold on the stairs, cold in the hall.
+
+She had been so happy at the idea of her warm, quiet room, of the mild
+light of the lamp, of an hour in the easy-chair with a good book in her
+hand. Now her beloved room was quite filled with a strange presence, a
+cloud of opium and stupefying perfume would assail her, and she would
+not enjoy a quiet quarter of an hour that night.
+
+Once more she would lie awake half the night with all her nerves
+jumping, taking one sleeping-tablet after another to induce a few hours
+of dull unrefreshing slumber.
+
+She was shaken by sudden anger.
+
+“I want my room to myself!” she thought, gritting her teeth like a
+defiant child, and clenching her fists. “Every animal has its hole into
+which to creep! I want a room where I can be alone. I must be alone, I
+must have rest. I don’t want any stranger in my room!”
+
+Exhausted and close to tears, she supported herself for a moment against
+the wall. She was considering whether it would not be better to go out
+again, to take refuge in a coffee-house and read the papers. But she was
+tired and dreaded the cold dark street. Moreover, she would have to come
+home in the end, and up until midnight there would be someone constantly
+waiting for her in her room.
+
+So she walked with sudden decision to her door. She decided to feign a
+headache. Ah, she would probably have one soon from anxiety and anger.
+She would simply go to bed, make compresses, and swallow powders,
+replying to all questions with a curt yes or no. Then, perhaps, she
+would presently be left alone.
+
+As she opened her door, she felt for a moment as if she were dreaming or
+insane.
+
+All the doors and drawers of her desk were open. White heaps stood up
+like little mountains. Her hasty glance took in letters, pictures,
+books, notebooks—everything in wild disorder.
+
+Before the open drawers Gisela was kneeling in a shirt and black silk
+underwear, rummaging among Myra’s linen.
+
+The worst that one could do to Myra was to touch her unprotected things.
+
+She sprang at Gisela, seizing her bare arm angrily.
+
+“What are you doing here? What’s in your mind?” she cried.
+
+Gisela was not in the least frightened. “You come too soon,” she said
+coldly, baring her teeth with a mocking twitch of her lips. “Yes, you
+come too soon. I know very well what I’m talking about. I mean not too
+late, too soon. If you had come five minutes later, all would have been
+over.”
+
+“What is the meaning of this?” Myra was becoming more and more enraged,
+rather than frightened, although the face that had been pushed close to
+hers for some hundred seconds, was strange and weird. “What are you
+doing here? Why are you going through my things?”
+
+“I’m looking for something,” said Gisela, sharply and contemptuously.
+“You can see for yourself that I’m looking for something. Is it any of
+your business? I really don’t think it _is_ any of your business. I
+really don’t believe that anything,” she touched Myra’s breast several
+times with one finger, “goes on in there, in your heart. Or in my heart
+for you. I’m in the ground, deep in the ground.” With a gentle broken
+voice and a face distorted by sorrow, she sang, “In the cool ground.”
+Suddenly in a completely altered tone that was clear and almost
+businesslike, she said, “I’m looking for your revolver.”
+
+Myra started to glance at the night-table, but with almost superhuman
+energy checked herself when she saw that Gisela’s eyes were glued to her
+face, watching every expression.
+
+“What do you want with the revolver?” she asked very quietly. “It’s no
+plaything for you.”
+
+“What do I want with the revolver?” said Gisela with a plaintive singing
+child’s voice. “To hold it against my temple, to pull the trigger, to
+die, to sleep. What a question! What do I want with the revolver? Ai,
+ai, what do people generally do with revolvers? Ai, ai....” She suddenly
+began to laugh. “Have you ever heard anybody say ‘Ai, ai,’ before in
+your life? It’s too stupid! Who can have invented the expression? Ai,
+ai! Ai, ai!” She began to laugh louder and louder. She laughed so much
+that the tears ran down her face. She shook her head so that wisps of
+hair fluttered about her forehead while she kept repeating, “Ai, ai! Ai,
+ai!”
+
+Suddenly she got up and her slender elegantly shod foot kicked her
+clothes which were lying on the floor.
+
+“You mustn’t be surprised that I got undressed,” she said, “I did it
+intentionally because I felt too warm. You’ll probably think it’s not
+right for me to undress in your room. If so, I forthwith beg your
+pardon, ask your forgiveness.” She said it very formally. “You’ll think
+a lot of things are not right because you come from a higher sphere of
+society. In other words, you’re just a spheroid!” Again she began to
+laugh hysterically. “I never did know what that was, but you’re exactly
+what I imagined a spheroid looked like!” She tottered and supported
+herself with both hands against the commode; her eyes were half shut,
+her mouth was distorted with pain. “If anybody in all this world loved
+me, she would put me to bed now. Oh, if I could only lie down so that my
+brain would get back into place again. It has turned over. But that’s
+the way it feels, exactly that way.”
+
+Myra caught her elbow and supported her.
+
+“Come, I’ll put you to bed.” She made an effort to speak very gently.
+“Come, you poor child. You can lie down and be comfortable on the divan.
+Then your poor brain will get back into place again. You are tired and
+you must sleep. Then you’ll be fresh and cheerful again in a few hours.”
+
+She took the slender, limp body by the shoulders, and guiding Gisela to
+the divan, laid her among the cushions and covered her with a blanket
+from the bed.
+
+She sat beside Gisela, mechanically caressing her cold, and apparently
+lifeless hands until the girl’s irregular breathing grew more quiet. Her
+limbs relaxed and her head sank deep among the pillows.
+
+Myra sat for a while without moving, for she was afraid she would wake
+the sleeper. At any rate, it was quiet in her room now.
+
+She looked at the clock. In half an hour Gisela was supposed to be at
+the cabaret. Myra cast a glance at the exhausted face with its worn
+features and open mouth. It was hardly possible to awaken the sleeper
+now and remind her of her obligations. Nor had Myra the slightest desire
+to do so.
+
+She rose quietly to go to the telephone. She wanted at least to call up
+the cabaret and tell them that Gisela was sick. Perhaps she could save
+her a fine in that way. Moreover, the thought was unbearable to her
+middle-class sensibilities that people would be waiting there, becoming
+more and more excited from moment to moment, and not know what had
+happened.
+
+At first she walked on tiptoe, glancing back cautiously like a criminal,
+toward the night-table, planning to remove the revolver. She wondered
+where she could put it. No place seemed safe enough. She decided to
+carry it on her person, and as she did not want it seen, she thrust it
+into her waist. It felt heavy and cold and gruesome hanging in her light
+shirt, and although she had tried the safety catch, she thought that at
+every step the slightest jolt would loosen it, jar the trigger, and
+drive a bullet through her breast. Defiantly, she told herself that
+nothing better could happen, controlling her fear in that fashion.
+
+She waited a long time in the telephone booth before she gave her number
+because she thought she heard steps in the hall, or doors opening. She
+did not want anybody to overhear her conversation.
+
+When she finally got her connection, she had to repeat three separate
+times the litany that Miss Werkenthin was ill and could not come.
+
+“One moment, please, I’ll connect you with the office,” said the first,
+very courteous voice.
+
+“Wait a minute, I’ll give you the manager,” said the second less
+affably.
+
+“So,” said the third sharp voice, “so Miss Werkenthin is sick. Well, the
+doctor will decide that! He’ll be at her room in a quarter of an hour.”
+
+“Miss Werkenthin is not at her room,” said Myra with a throbbing heart.
+“She is at my room.”
+
+“And who are you anyway?”
+
+“A friend of Miss Werkenthin.” No, not even if they had broken her on
+the rack would Myra have told him her name. “Miss Werkenthin was
+visiting me and she fainted.”
+
+She heard the mocking intonation with which the voice repeated, “She
+went to a friend’s house and fainted!”
+
+Another voice hoarse with rage, shouted into the mouthpiece, “She’s
+drunk, huh?”
+
+Myra heard somebody being dragged away and pacified, and more rude
+muttering. “Morphine, coke and alcohol, one after the other!”
+
+“Tell your friend,” this was the first sharp voice, and the contemptuous
+“your friend” was like a blow to Myra, “that while I can understand her
+preferring the pleasure of your company to an appearance on my stage, I
+can also assure her that it is no pleasure at all for me to pay her a
+high wage for nothing or less than nothing. Miss Werkenthin must come
+with a doctor’s certificate tomorrow or she will be dismissed.”
+
+The receiver was hung up with a bang.
+
+For a painful moment Myra considered phoning the doctor. Perhaps he
+could be moved to write a certificate.
+
+But she would have to give her name and address. She would have to meet
+this strange man and take him into her room. She was boiling with
+indignation. How had she been precipitated into all this?
+
+She returned to her room without making a sound. When she saw her things
+scattered on the floor, another wave of anger swept over her.
+
+She did not want to go out. But neither did she like to see everything
+ransacked and thrown about in this fashion.
+
+She turned a chair so that its back was to the desolation in the room
+and on the divan. She picked up a scientific work and endeavored to
+concentrate on it. On the divan, the regular breathing was so hoarse and
+harsh that it seemed not to come from that delicate body. The disorder
+behind her signified disturbance too. It was as if the open drawers and
+doors were uttering a cry for help. And she seemed to have eyes in the
+back of her head which could see through the easy-chair to the pieces of
+paper and batiste which stood out white against the dark carpet.
+
+The walking and talking ceased outside. It grew still in the room, still
+in the house.
+
+The heat died down, the room became colder and colder.
+
+The cold crept from the floor into Myra’s legs. She drew up her feet on
+the chair, but that did not help for long.
+
+Beside her on the floor lay Gisela’s coat. She picked it up and wrapped
+it around her knees. A cloud of dust rose from it. Disgusted, she threw
+it back on the carpet.
+
+She was shivering with cold and agitation and weariness.
+
+Long after midnight she got up to fetch her own coat from the nearest
+chair. Her limbs were stiff and hurt at every move. As cautiously as she
+stepped the boards creaked, and Gisela started up with a cry.
+
+Her eyelids were swollen thick, her hair hung in tangled strands around
+her pale, haggard face.
+
+“Who’s there?” she cried. “Oh, it’s you, Myra!” She laughed slightly
+embarrassed. “I thought it was someone breaking in!”
+
+“I called up the Trocadero,” said Myra quietly and wearily. “I think
+Kayser himself answered the telephone. You missed the performance. He
+was very angry. You have to bring a doctor’s certificate in the morning,
+or he’ll let you go.”
+
+“Let him,” said Gisela scornfully. “He’s ridiculous with his threats!”
+
+Myra shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps you can tell him that yourself
+tomorrow. It was unpleasant enough to let myself be treated by such a
+man as if it were my fault.”
+
+“Poor Myra.” It sounded sincerely remorseful and without a trace of
+sarcasm. “You don’t know how bad you make me feel. Must your poor little
+bourgeois soul with its thousand cares be worried about me!” She worked
+her way out from under the blanket. “I was pretty much in my right mind
+before, when I was looking for the revolver, believe me! I know exactly
+what I am worth, and what is best for my own sake and everybody else’s.”
+
+She sat on the divan, gazing gloomily at her slender legs in their black
+silk stockings.
+
+“My mother always prophesied that I’d end in the gutter. Even when I was
+a little girl. And I must end soon if it isn’t to be there. I’m sick,
+tomorrow I may be breadless. My voice is gone, ruined. Tomorrow I’ll be
+hunting a lover at the club, the day after at the café, the week after
+on the street.”
+
+She raised her face which was bathed in tears.
+
+“Give me your revolver, Myra, I beg you. You’ll be doing a good deed.
+I’ll write a farewell letter so that you won’t be under suspicion. I beg
+you, have mercy on me!”
+
+“I haven’t got it any more,” Myra lied. “I’ve hidden it.” At that moment
+she felt it hanging heavily in the loose bulge on her shirtwaist so that
+the collar was like a tight narrow band around her neck.
+
+“What will happen now?” she thought. “I’ll never get rid of her. It will
+go on like this. I’ll find her in my room every time I come home. She
+won’t have a job any longer, and no money. She’ll stick to me like a
+burr. And that’s what my life will be like! Why should all this have
+happened? How have I deserved it? Only because I let myself be pleased
+by her affection. Has she any claim on me because of that, have I given
+myself into her hands body and soul?”
+
+Shivering with cold, Gisela crossed her bare arms over her breast.
+
+“It’s cold here,” she said. “Why didn’t you come to bed, poor little
+beastie? It must certainly be very late—much too late for me to catch a
+car home. Ah, I feel changed. Come, Myra girl, let us both come to bed
+so that we’ll be warm. Do you feel as deathly cold as I do?”
+
+“No,” said Myra curtly. “Lie down. I want to read a little more. I’m
+still too wide awake.”
+
+“I’ll lie close to the wall,” Gisela said. “You’ll have room.”
+
+“Yes, yes, thanks!”
+
+Myra sat perfectly still again in her deep easy-chair. Again the weight
+of the revolver made a fine tight band across her neck. She reflected on
+her conduct and became dizzy as if she saw an abyss which she had
+crossed without having been aware of its terrible depth.
+
+Had not a voice within her cried only a moment before, “Do it! Give her
+the revolver! Let her make an end of it, and then you’ll have peace!”
+
+If she had done that, there would have been a shot, blood and brains
+would have spurted, a corpse would be lying in her room, or a dying
+woman.
+
+She, Myra Rudloff, would have committed a murder!
+
+Out of cowardliness, out of love of comfort, out of petty pitiful
+selfishness. She had already committed that murder in her mind. All that
+had been needed was an innocent lifting of her hand....
+
+And then....
+
+She shuddered and cowered.
+
+From the bed came a deep regular breathing.
+
+Myra’s mouth twisted into a scornful smile.
+
+“But she would not have done it,” she thought, “she’d never have done
+it.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+A highroad stretched away toward the light. In the dark shadowy corners
+that the sun never reached, little stained rotting patches of snow were
+still lying. The fruit trees at either side of the road were laden with
+little ball-like buds on which a white streak was already discernible.
+The woods in the distance were enveloped in a reddish veil that
+betokened new life.
+
+Myra and Sophie were wandering along the road.
+
+“God, it’s beautiful,” said Myra, opening her mouth to draw the pure
+invigorating air into her lungs. “It was a wonderful idea of Nora’s to
+chase us both out!”
+
+“Nora always has wonderful ideas,” said Sophie with a happy,
+affectionate pride. “She always knows what I need and what will do me
+good much better than I do myself. For the most part I never know what
+is the matter with me. Actually, I feel uncomfortable and I don’t know
+whether I should like to sleep, eat or go for a walk. Then Nora says to
+me, ‘You ought to lie down,’ or ‘you need to get out into the air’—and
+it’s always the right thing.”
+
+“Good God, how beautiful the world is!” Myra exulted. “Oh, Sophus, I’m
+so insanely grateful to you for making me conscious again!”
+
+“We will walk often in the open together,” said Sophie. “I’ll show you
+all the things that I looked at a hundred times long ago, very long ago,
+at a period when I was desperately lonely and devoured by the need of
+some human soul to whom I could show them. We must come here when the
+fruit trees are in bloom, and afterwards, when the whole woods is a
+garden of dog-roses and May-flowers, and in September when the leaves
+have turned.” She seized Myra’s hand, clasping the wrist with a grip so
+firm that it was almost painful. “You must not go away—that was all
+nonsense that I preached to you before. We’ll have to put your life to
+rights here. We must find something for you to do, and you must furnish
+a nice little home so that you don’t have to remain in that horrible
+pension. Then you’ll come after work and chat with us and once a week
+we’ll have to declare a holiday and run around the mountains from
+morning till night.” Suddenly she changed her tone and said with an
+amusing dryness, “And then when we’re tired out, we’ll stand on some
+declivity where we can smell the dinner that God destined for us,
+steaming out of the chimney pots below, and we won’t be able to get
+down....”
+
+“We’ll get down!” said Myra confidently. “If for no other reason,
+because we can’t do anything else. Or shall we turn aside from our goal
+to seek an easier way? Never!”
+
+At first, while their feet sank in the rustling leaves, the going was
+easy. But during the last stage, just on a level with the roofs, above
+the road, there were more pines and spruces and the ground was strewn
+with needles which in the bright sunlight were smoother than a waxed
+floor.
+
+Sophie who was accustomed from childhood to the ups and downs of
+mountains, though she was somewhat out of practice of late, was
+nevertheless much surer-footed than Myra, who looked for a supporting
+branch from step to step. Sophie stretched out her hand to her, but Myra
+declined it ambitiously. Whereupon both of them began to laugh at
+themselves, at one another, at their little adventure, at the quips they
+shouted. All that was necessary was for one of them to warn the other
+that he might slip, to turn the laughter they were trying to suppress
+into a peal of childish merriment. Myra laughed until the tears came
+into her eyes. She was no longer watching where she stepped. Suddenly
+her feet slipped, a branch which she caught at snapped and remained in
+her hands. She would certainly have fallen had not Sophie, whose one
+foot was supported against a root, stooped and caught her and held her
+upright. They remained for a moment breast to breast, hot, laughing,
+panting for breath, while their pulses throbbed. At the same moment both
+became serious. Their faces bent one toward the other—humbly,
+ineluctably, lips were laid against lips.
+
+Myra closed her eyes. She felt Sophie’s feverish mouth on her eyelids,
+her temples, her cheeks. She heard her hot voice in a whisper.
+
+“Don’t move, don’t resist, or we will both go plunging down!”
+
+She had no thought of resisting. She had no thought of moving. She stood
+motionless. Her heart seemed to expand, to grow warm. It seemed to her
+as if she must flower under these caresses like a young tree in May.
+
+They ate lunch under a friendly enticing red roof, and crossing the
+silvery lake, wandered toward the station. At times they were
+boisterous, at times sentimental, but always courteously reserved on the
+personal theme. They spoke of a thousand things, but not of themselves,
+not of that which both were thinking and feeling.
+
+At the small station, they sat with other people, silent and tired,
+waiting for the train. The darkness set in early. The little lanterns
+cast a melancholy light through the blue dusk. Myra began to feel cold,
+and pressed her face against her raised coat collar.
+
+At last the train came. They both looked for an empty compartment
+without stating their intention. They found one and climbed in.
+
+“Now everything will be all right,” thought Myra. “I will lay my head on
+her shoulder and she will say gentle, nice things to me. Then this cold
+feeling will go away.”
+
+Sophie sat beside her, leaning slightly forward, and stared out the
+window without saying a word—for a long, a long, long time. Outside,
+fields and forest glided by, shrouded deeper and deeper in the twilight,
+broken at rare intervals by a lighted window, a solitary lantern. At
+last Sophie turned her face to Myra, a face which in the feeble glow of
+the flickering little gas-lamp looked grave, deathly pale and tense in
+every feature.
+
+“I told you something this morning, Myra,” she began awkwardly,
+stammering, and yet it sounded as if she had spent the last hour
+learning it by heart. “Just recollect it as if it were the only thing I
+had said or done. I told you to go away from here! And now I beg you if
+you bear me the least—good will—‘Go away from here!’ I’ve known for
+almost thirty years that I cannot live without Nora. I’ve proved it to
+myself. I went to the bad in every sense when I lost contact with her,
+and I became a human being and a worker at the moment she came to me. I
+have lived for five years in the conviction that I am unequivocally
+happy. I dare not let anything shake that conviction. I dare not ever
+think that there is another possibility in life for me than Nora. She
+would feel it and she would go. She endures her sufferings solely
+because she is an absolute necessity to me. She would end it all if she
+knew that I was happy for as much as an hour without her. Perhaps you
+like us so well that it will be a real sacrifice to give up your
+friendly relations with us. I would almost say, I hope so.” She bowed
+her head very low so that Myra should not see the quivering of her lips.
+“But I know that you will make this sacrifice because you have an
+intimation of what is involved. I have overestimated my powers. It is
+very bad to have to confess that to you. When you are gone, I will
+confess it to Nora. But not now, as long as it might deprive her of her
+peace for a moment. And I would not find the right voice in which to
+tell it now!” She stared out the window again.
+
+Myra’s throat was parched.
+
+“Of course,” she said without thinking, “naturally.” And again, “Yes, of
+course, naturally!” without knowing what she meant by it.
+
+When the train stopped, Sophie jumped out and caught Myra’s elbow in
+order to assist her. But she relinquished it again at once, and both
+smiled with hurt and embarrassment.
+
+They took leave of one another on the platform with a firm squeeze of
+the hand.
+
+“Get home safely, child,” said Sophie, “and get safely through life. And
+I thank you—for everything.”
+
+“And I you,” answered Myra in a lifeless voice.
+
+Then she dropped the good firm hand.
+
+For a moment their eyes met, stole one into the other’s, then they
+shifted again, as if frightened, to some bright point in the distance.
+
+Sophie turned. She plunged both hands in her pockets, bent her head and
+strode away.
+
+For a while she continued to tower above the crowds of hurrying people,
+then her tall figure was submerged and disappeared.
+
+Slowly, with heavy footsteps, Myra turned toward the opposite stairway.
+
+
+
+
+                                   XV
+
+
+They sat first in the basket-chairs in front of a café with little lamps
+that had roses on the silk shades and pearl fringes. There were Gisela,
+Kramer, Mara Luigi, Will Kraft, John. They ate fruit-ices and waffles
+and drank a sweet liqueur, in order, as Giesbert said, “to prevent a
+glaciation of their stomach walls.”
+
+But Mara Luigi who had been dancing, and Kraft and John, who had been to
+the concert, had not eaten that evening and expressed their cravings for
+a real beefsteak. So they travelled two doors farther down to a wine
+restaurant where the orchestra was playing the same pieces in a somewhat
+different order.
+
+After their meal they went to the nearest bar and drank a Sweden punch
+and a bottle of champagne, and Mara Luigi danced with Giesbert and
+Kraft, which caused all the other dancers to stop and stare with
+interest. Myra felt her vanity somewhat flattered because she was with
+such excellent dancers.
+
+But the official closing time came. The waiters brought the bill, turned
+down the lights and drew the heavy purple curtains across the windows.
+But nobody thought of getting up and going.
+
+At a neighboring table were sitting a beautiful blonde woman and two
+gentlemen. Myra kept staring at her all evening. The blonde woman
+regarded everything with a smiling or surprised curiosity, as if she
+were at a zoological garden, while the two robust gentlemen sat beside
+her as if it were their task to shield her from every impertinent glance
+and every poisonous breath.
+
+“Probably one of them is her husband the other her brother,” thought
+Myra. “There is a place unoccupied at their table, why don’t I sit
+there? Don’t I belong among that kind of people? By family, education,
+training and manners? The smooth-shaven man is certainly her
+brother—he’s the dead image of her. Wouldn’t it be much more suitable if
+I were married to him, and were making a little evening out with my
+brother and sister-in-law. That would be very nice. But why do I want
+that? Merely because I have a nostalgia for perfectly plain simple
+bourgeois surroundings, or because that lovely woman pleases me?”
+
+When the three people had left the neighboring table, Myra began to find
+it quite boresome and sterile. She was tired and had had her fill, but
+it seemed to her as if something further must happen in order to give
+this senseless expenditure of time and money some semblance of
+justification. She was afraid that it would happen again, as always,
+when she left a party early because she could not endure the boredom of
+it any longer. Everybody would say to her next day, “Oh, what a pity
+that you went so early, it was especially nice later on, we met so and
+so, and we had such a good time!”
+
+Gisela was all for going to the Club. The others, except Kraft, who
+never touched a card, not from moral scruples, but because they bored
+him to death, agreed.
+
+Myra was a little frightened. She knew that it would turn out as usual.
+Gisela would play and lose. Then Myra would try to save something and
+place her own bet—with some caution and discretion, and would win twice
+and lose three times. Or the other way round.
+
+In any case, those hours at the Club always cost a few hundred or a few
+thousand marks, and for a week Myra would calculate the lost sums in
+terms of the books she saw in show-windows or handsome wood and leather
+goods. Or she would look at the beggars on the street whom she could
+have made happy, and the pale-faced children, with burning eyes,
+standing in front of toy shops or confectioners’ windows.
+
+To be sure—she herself was not much put out. She could telegraph the
+bank and in a few hours would have as much money as she wanted. She was
+not extremely clever at banking manipulations but she did know one
+thing, she spent more than her interest. Sometimes it gave her an uneasy
+feeling, almost a slight dizziness. But she scolded herself for a
+narrow-minded Philistine. She would never have children—and she would
+not live long. It might even be good not to possess another cent and
+have, so to speak, to balance on a tight-rope. Such a situation would
+prove whether the forces of life were strong enough in her. Perhaps she
+would be happier in some very modest walk of life where she had to
+work—as a waitress or a shop-girl. Perhaps physical need would be at
+once an impetus and an absolution for putting her beloved revolver to
+her forehead.
+
+But it was not merely indifference to life or death that caused Myra to
+go to the Club with the others. Gisela played with more bad luck than
+passion, and if she was so insistent about going to the Club or some bar
+or dance-hall, it was because she hoped to meet Fiametta there. Myra
+knew this. They had met often during the winter, and Myra was fascinated
+each time by her eloquent and haughty beauty, and was each time vexed
+because Fiametta was always dressed in better taste, was more assured in
+her manner, and above all, travelled in much better company than Myra.
+
+As no one was at hand to attract Myra’s attention, she looked at herself
+in a mirror. She seemed quite a stranger to herself, and yet acceptable.
+She winked at herself in the glass as if to say, “Never fear, tonight
+we’ll manage to put on as haughty a face as that conceited person!”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+By the time they left the Club they were all in a more or less bad
+humor. They had all lost except John, who, with his hands full of bills,
+was running after Kraft and with tears in his eyes and a pleading voice,
+trying to force the money on him.
+
+Will Kraft refused it with a scarcely veiled irritation, his hands
+plunged in the pockets of his jacket.
+
+Both of them made Myra feel sorry. And Kramer made her feel sorry too,
+for he had lost heavily, and was now quite pale and monosyllabic.
+
+And Giesbert and Mara Luigi made her feel sorry: they were bandying
+reproaches for not having bet at least on different sides of the table.
+Under their harsh muttered words was something like a hate that has been
+smouldering for years.
+
+And Gisela made her feel sorry, because she looked wretched and decayed,
+like a chronic invalid—and because she had not met Fiametta.
+
+And she felt sorry for herself—Oh, she felt so sorry for herself!
+
+They were all in a bad humor, but nobody wanted to go home and get over
+it by himself. All of them were expecting some compensation for
+this squandered night, some mad intoxication, some vast
+jollification—sensation, experience, joy, or an hour’s oblivion of all
+vexations.
+
+“Where do we go from here?” asked Giesbert, swinging his cane with
+somewhat affected high spirits. “Heads up, ladies and gentlemen, heads
+up! As everybody knows, the tom-cat doesn’t really go into action till
+morning! Forward to our sweet Emil’s! I wager that the overwhelming
+majority of our distinguished little company will feel quite at home
+there.”
+
+They turned down a quiet dark side-street where stood a quiet dark
+little third rate middle class beer-shop. An elderly woman, bare headed,
+with a shawl around her shoulders, seemed to be waiting for a dog that
+was sniffing around, and which she called and motioned to from time to
+time.
+
+Giesbert appeared to know her. He greeted her with a friendly slap on
+the back, and asked her to open the door.
+
+The old lady undertook to guide them, and amidst constant cries of
+“Watch out!” they went up and down stairs, across an unlighted yard,
+through narrow doors, and tiny pitch-black passages between thick baize
+curtains, until suddenly there was a confusion of lights, sounds, colors
+and voices.
+
+The large long room, bathed in lilac light, was decorated with
+impeccable taste. Black and lavender were the dominating colors. The
+thick carpet was black strewn with lavender flowers. The polished
+panelling, the marble mantelpiece, the velvet hanging covered with
+wildly fantastic lavender designs were also black. On the cornice of the
+panelling were black bronze and black wood-carvings, standing out
+against the lilac wallpaper.
+
+“How pretty!” said Myra her eyes wide with surprise. “How does it come
+to be here?”
+
+“Oh, his friends have furnished it for him,” said Giesbert with a rather
+ironic smile. “As a kind of private establishment! Why shouldn’t it be
+pretty? There are very wealthy people among them—and some very
+well-known artists—painters, sculptors, interior decorators—or what have
+you! In return, little Emil provides them champagne and company!”
+
+“Emil!” called John to a slender, sinuous, dark-haired man. “Show our
+ladies your establishment!”
+
+Emil was all graciousness. He opened a narrow door, and they entered a
+dimly lighted, somber room, in which were standing a dozen brown tables.
+The light willow chairs had been piled on them, and the whole room was
+embellished with advertisements of beer and tobacco companies.
+
+At one table in a corner a pair of young fellows were lounging with
+cards in their hands.
+
+Next door was the real beer-shop whose window gave on the street. More
+chairs and tables, the tank with its brightly polished taps and a
+player-piano against the wall. The place was in almost total darkness,
+only a little night-lamp above the buffet was reflected in the metal
+trimmings. In one corner they saw two shadowy figures that seemed to be
+wrestling, and heard suppressed gigglings.
+
+They returned to the first room, and Emil, as he was called on all
+sides, assisted them to find a cozy table and the necessary number of
+chairs.
+
+Myra regarded the people around her with a mixture of curiosity,
+sympathy and aversion.
+
+Not far off, there was sitting a fat black-bearded man on whose broad
+and hairy hand a rosy solitaire flashed and sparkled. And that
+fat-fingered hand adorned with rings was toying with the head and
+shoulder of a pale young lad, clad in what was obviously an outworn
+Sunday best. He seemed half brazen and half embarrassed.
+
+At another table was seated a distinguished looking old gentleman, whose
+finely chiselled features and gray Van Dyke, betrayed the thinker. One
+of his slender white hands lay at the base of a champagne glass, the
+other accompanied his long discourses as if he were on a platform or in
+the pulpit. His handsome blue eyes glowed as though afire with youthful
+enthusiasm. Opposite him, sat a broad-shouldered, bull-neck soldier,
+with a good-looking honest peasant’s face, grinning, flattered but
+uncomprehending.
+
+More even than the men, the women attracted Myra’s attention. They ran
+the whole gamut of types. Some had on dark jackets, with lapels,
+breast-pockets and stiff collars. On their mannishly cut hair they wore
+small men’s hats. Others betrayed themselves only by a slight
+overpainting. The sharp features of a few expressed intelligence and
+character. There were others who verged on the cocotte.
+
+One in particular Myra thought very beautiful. She was tall and slender,
+had short golden brown curls and the build and features of a Greek boy.
+She was sitting with a big party having a very good time, and laughed a
+lot and seemed slightly drunk.
+
+A sweet provocative muffled music issued from behind the curtain. Two
+young soldiers in uniform had clasped one another around the hips and
+were swaying, body to body, in waltz rhythm. Despite their heavy boots,
+they stepped as delicately and discreetly as women dancers—not a step
+was audible.
+
+“Ah, Emil,” said Giesbert, “how real life is here! When I think I’ll get
+a bottle of champagne, I get it, but when I think, I’ll get nine
+bottles, I don’t get them!”
+
+“No, no, Mr. Giesbert,” said Emil, smiling, “you can have nine bottles
+too!”
+
+They drank champagne, and champagne with red wine, and champagne with
+Port, and Benedictines, and Sweden punches and flips and champagne.
+
+Myra drank somewhat prudently, and it amused her to watch how one after
+the other, they began to talk nonsense.
+
+But although she was still mistress of her tongue and her thoughts, she
+felt her blood pulsing somewhat faster and the music lap her nerves in a
+warm stream. For a moment, as she closed her eyes, she felt a desire,
+and actually visualized herself sitting by the Rhine, on a terrace, or
+in a garden, listening to old sentimental folk songs from the water, and
+drinking a fragrant “Maybowl” with trusted friends.
+
+When she opened her eyes and saw the room with its morbid color-scheme,
+filled with smoke and fumes, she was overwhelmed with aversion and
+misery.
+
+They had become quite merry at her table. All had soft, parted, burning
+lips and glowing eyes. All laughed and nestled into their chairs as into
+a caress, or groped for one another with their hands.
+
+“Intoxication, intoxication,” Myra thought, “I must force myself to feel
+what the others feel! I had such a nice warm sense of well-being before,
+a soft gliding dizziness. Why has it gone and left everything so stale
+and horrid?”
+
+She tossed off two glasses of champagne quickly, one after the other.
+But she simply felt a dull heavy pressure over her eyes. She held her
+hand over the glass that Kraft wanted to give her “to make her happy.”
+
+“No, thanks, please, I have a head-ache, and I won’t become happy
+anyway.”
+
+“Take a little coke and get rid of your head-ache,” suggested Gisela.
+
+“Perhaps.” Myra was ready for anything.
+
+From all sides little gold and silver boxes were offered her.
+
+She took a pinch of the white powder on the back of her hand, and
+snuffed it up her nose. She had an impression of powdered snow when she
+saw the white crystals. The room was close and stuffy and the idea made
+her feel better. It was as if she were breathing pure clear winter air.
+The top of her skull opened and the depressing fog that had weighed down
+her brain all evening disappeared. The veils seemed to be torn from her
+weary eyes. Everything seemed nearer and clearer, firmer in its
+outlines, brighter in color.
+
+“Thank God,” she said with relief, “I’m beginning to understand. It
+really is a glorious feeling.”
+
+But the effect wore off quickly. She tried it again.
+
+Her head was clear, her thought firm. She felt well and secure.
+
+Giesbert was paying her rather thick-tongued compliments. “Shplendid,
+little Rudloff, shplendid! The little girl can carry off a thing or two!
+My highest reshpects! She’ll drink ush under the table, Will, and
+‘shnow’ us under the floor, into the cellar, under the cellar. We jusht
+won’t be there at all, she makesh ush look shmall, sho shmall!”
+
+Mara Luigi had changed places with Kramer in order to sit beside Myra.
+She laid both her arms on the arm of Myra’s chair and spoke to her in a
+low voice.
+
+“Tell me honestly, why is it you don’t like me? I’ve always liked you so
+immensely. From the very first moment—I’m right in saying that, am I
+not, Gisela? But at the same time, I’ve always had the feeling that you
+couldn’t abide me. I’m too feminine for you, eh? But, believe me, the
+externals have very little to do with it! Or do you prefer bobbed hair?
+Shall I have my hair bobbed?”
+
+“Myra is the only woman in the world I’d ever marry,” declared little
+John like a sleepy child. “I’d marry Myra right off, if I were a man!”
+
+“God, what a fore-leg the lady has!” Kraft put his hand around her wrist
+admiringly. “Show us your feet too!”
+
+Laughing, Myra pressed her crossed feet against the edge of his chair.
+He stroked her ankles in their sheer silk stockings.
+
+“Yes, you may stroke them,” John conceded magnanimously, “you may stroke
+them because it’s Myra, that’s why.”
+
+A great and almost thrilling joy surged over Myra. She felt herself
+beautiful, desirable and desired.
+
+“She has the most beautiful legs in the world,” said Gisela, pulling
+back Myra’s skirt to her knees. Myra let her do it without protest. For
+the first time, in a burst of pride, she realized herself what perfect
+slender legs she had.
+
+The girl at the other table, who looked like a Greek boy, had been
+constantly trying to attract Myra’s attention. Every time that Myra
+glanced up, the Greek boy would carry her glass to her mouth. At first
+she had done it as if by accident, now she smiled as she raised her
+glass. Myra smiled back and drank to her.
+
+Presently the girl wanted to get up. The people at her table laughed and
+tried to restrain her. But she would not be deterred.
+
+Glass in hand, she came over to Myra. The effort to walk without
+staggering, lent her movements an especial grace.
+
+“I want to drink to you,” she said with a challenging little laugh.
+
+Myra raised her glass. They drank.
+
+The stranger hesitated. “And—I’d like to give you a kiss, too—that is,
+if Gisela will allow me.”
+
+Everybody at the table laughed aloud and shouted remarks.
+
+“Oh, I allow you,” said Gisela ironically.
+
+“There is nothing for her to allow,” Myra contradicted haughtily.
+
+The stranger bent quickly, and Myra felt against her lips a hot open
+wine-wet mouth—for the space of a second. She closed her eyes, and since
+her head was pressed back into her shoulders, and Kraft still held her
+feet on his chair, she became so dizzy that she gripped her chair with
+both hands. She felt as if the chair were tipping, the whole room
+swaying, as if she were on a swing that was plunging through the air, or
+on a ship whose planks were sprung and were being sucked into a raging
+whirl-pool.
+
+She sat up and pushed away the stranger almost violently in her need for
+air.
+
+At the same moment, she saw Gisela jump up, deathly pale, with her mouth
+distorted, her head stretched forward like a panther ready to spring.
+Her burning eyes were staring at the entrance door.
+
+Involuntarily Myra followed her glance and saw the dark curtain fall
+into place behind the latest arrivals.
+
+Beside Ulrich Zeeden’s somewhat stooped figure stood Fiametta, on the
+arm of a tall, slender elegant man.
+
+Her eyes were large and clear and unsurprised, but full of a probing
+curiosity and of a warm velvety sheen. To Myra it seemed as if those
+eyes were not an arm’s length away from her, so distinctly could she
+observe the play of the lids, the flecks of light on the brown iris, the
+shadow of the lashes.
+
+Those eyes were raised with a soft gleam to the man at her side as if
+they had had more than enough of the scene before them. Her lips moved.
+The man nodded in agreement. All three turned, and the curtain fell into
+place behind them again.
+
+Gisela seized a glass from the table and flung it with a bitter laugh at
+the door. Giesbert and Kraft instantly caught her wrists. She resisted,
+trying to free herself, but finally dropped her head on her breast, and
+began to cry, loudly, unrestrainedly, hysterically.
+
+The other people, occupied as they were with themselves, nevertheless
+watched her attentively.
+
+Myra began to tremble in every limb.
+
+“Go!” she muttered. “I must go, must go, must go!”
+
+She felt as if she would join in that strident weeping the next moment,
+or throw herself on the floor, or overturn the table and trample the
+glasses and bottles under her feet.
+
+She was glad when she found herself in the street at last, in a cold
+blue dawn, and still gladder to be in the taxi that they all took.
+
+The air brought her to her senses. She felt beastly wretched.
+
+She made the others swear not to cause any unnecessary commotion on the
+stairs or in the halls. But the more she pleaded, the more exuberant
+they became. Kramer had lost control completely. He was all for knocking
+on Mrs. Meidinger’s door and ordering her to send him up a pretty girl.
+
+“It’s no more than her duty,” he babbled. “She’s the mother of this
+establishment. What’s to prevent her putting it on my bill, she puts
+everything else on it.”
+
+When Myra opened her door, Giesbert tried to crowd in after her. She
+pushed him out, but he embraced her and a tussle ensued in the open door
+in the course of which Giesbert hugged Myra and covered her face and
+neck with passionate kisses.
+
+Suddenly the door of the next room was opened with a bang, and Luisa
+Peters emerged in an amazing big-checked dressing-gown, with her hair
+done up for the night in two long smoothly plaited braids. She
+forcefully commanded quiet.
+
+Little Marga Luigi found her unexpected appearance so comical that she
+bent double, shaking with laughter and pointing her finger at her.
+
+Myra took advantage of Giesbert’s astonished about-face to slip into her
+room where she shut and bolted the door.
+
+She staggered against the bureau with which she supported herself,
+trembling in every limb. Burning shame was devouring her, gnawing at her
+inwardly, hollowing her out.
+
+She bent double but she could not escape the incessant gnawing pain. She
+wished she could get away, but she knew she did not have the courage or
+the strength to pack a suitcase. But she must get away, at least out of
+that house, before morning. It was unthinkable that she should ever
+cross the dining-room again. Unthinkable, too, to wait for Mrs.
+Meidinger to give her notice that she could not tolerate such a person
+in her house.
+
+She abhorred, she loathed herself. In addition she felt physically
+wretched—dizziness, weariness, a galloping heart, the gall-like
+bitterness with which the cocaine burned her jaws.
+
+She felt that she must come to some decision, but she did not know what.
+
+Her thoughts sought feverishly for something to which they could cling,
+sought some person to whom they could confess, and who would have the
+power to absolve them. She was seeking someone who would protect her
+from herself, to whom she could kneel, in whose lap she could hide her
+face, and who would lay kind, strong hands on her head.
+
+“Mother!” a voice cried within her. “Mother!”
+
+Her thoughts turned to Sophie—but Sophie repelled them. In that serene
+little house, which had always been so comforting a refuge to her, she
+would be a disturber of the peace. Not through any fault of hers, she
+thought bitterly.
+
+Olga—Olga alone was salvation. She would press the revolver to her
+forehead, would think that it was Olga’s cool, firm hand.
+
+And Olga’s hands would efface, erase, all the painful things, the shame,
+the remorse, the disgust and grief and hopeless despair. In another
+moment all that could be effaced.
+
+And if she was dead the next morning, everything would be explained. Of
+course, little Mara Luigi would not understand it: she would always
+declare that Myra had been “so cheerful last night.”
+
+But Fiametta would understand. She would recall the previous night. For
+she had seen Myra, oh, Myra still felt the impact of her glance, and
+Fiametta would hunch up her shoulders with a sudden shudder at the
+thought that she had glanced at a dying woman.
+
+Luisa Peters would say, “Poor child, she drank to find the courage.”
+
+Sophie would be very shocked—perhaps she would be grieved too. But what
+concern was that of Myra’s! Sophie had not given a thought as to what
+became of Myra. And she had Nora....
+
+It must happen quickly before anybody woke up in the house. In twenty
+seconds it would be over—all over.
+
+At that moment when she took the revolver out of the box, there was a
+knock at the door.
+
+Myra stood motionless, holding her breath. Perhaps she ought to do it
+now, at once, quickly, spurred by that impatient knocking.
+
+Then it would be over, then whoever was outside there could enter, for
+all she cared.
+
+Would it make a loud noise? Probably she wouldn’t hear it herself—she
+hoped not, though of all the senses the ear must function the longest.
+Ah, perhaps it wouldn’t happen so quickly, and she would hear them
+breaking down the door and the shrieks and cries.
+
+“Please, open the door!” called the voice outside; it was as pleading as
+it was commanding. “Please, Miss Rudloff, open the door a moment!”
+
+It was not Giesbert, or Mara Luigi, or one of the maids. It was Luisa
+Peters.
+
+Perhaps she was sick and needed someone. She would hardly be rattling
+Myra’s door in the middle of the night to read her a moral lecture.
+
+Myra tossed the revolver carelessly into the box and opened the door.
+
+Luisa Peters forced her way into the room. She stood broad and robust,
+and a little ridiculous in her big-checked dressing-gown, in spite of
+her pale face.
+
+Her quick alert eye instantly noticed the open box and the revolver with
+the butt sticking out.
+
+But she did not betray this by the slightest gesture.
+
+“I must beg your pardon, Miss Rudloff,” she said with a good-natured
+smile. “I complained because I thought that you came home in a rather
+happy condition. But I saw at once that you weren’t well. You must lie
+down immediately—you can hardly stand on your feet. Can I help you? You
+had better believe, I know something about taking care of sick people!”
+
+While she was speaking, she took Myra’s hat from her tangled hair. She
+unbuttoned her dress. She held Myra like a doll, turning her this way
+and that with her strong arms. She removed the hurting hair-pins from
+the loosened knots.
+
+Suddenly Myra felt the warm presence of a human being, felt those good,
+strong, solicitous hands. It was as if all her festering wounds broke
+open and warm blood washed away her pain. She began to weep,
+unappeasable gentle tears, releasing her, rinsing her of pain.
+
+“I am still too much a child,” she said, while the tears streamed down
+her face. “You will think I am drunk—but I am perfectly serious. I am
+still too much a child to run around the world so horribly alone!”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+For three days Luisa Peters held Myra in gentle captivity. She did not
+leave her alone for a moment, had her meals served in her room and
+turned away everyone with the announcement that Myra was sick.
+
+Myra was perfectly satisfied with this arrangement. She herself would
+not have found the strength for this lie, and yet she felt the absolute
+necessity of separating forever from all the people among whom she had
+lived during the past year.
+
+The very first day Luisa Peters endeavored to convince Myra—which did
+not prove difficult—that her associations were altogether unsuitable and
+that the best thing she could do would be to turn her back on that city
+and all her so-called friends.
+
+On the third, in the morning, she told Myra a great deal about her
+native city, of its far-famed cleanliness for which she was constantly
+longing, of its people who were reputed stiff and formal because they
+did not wear their hearts on their sleeves—although they were honest and
+courageous and pure. She told her, too, about her beautiful little
+step-sister, Gwen, who was about Myra’s age, though still a child, the
+carefully sheltered pet of the whole house. She would be a more suitable
+companion for Myra than these horrible females here.
+
+In the afternoon she helped Myra pack her suitcase. Myra wanted to go
+away, to go to the clean city where the swift white little boats crossed
+the blue waters.
+
+Myra was quite touched by so much kindness and more so, if anything, by
+Luisa’s confidence.
+
+She smiled, a sad and knowing smile, when at parting Luisa Peters took
+her in her arms and kissed her on both cheeks.
+
+“At heart I’m at least ten years older than she,” she thought
+sorrowfully, “for I know what, God be praised, she does not even
+suspect—that she’s in love with me! Because she has little of the talent
+of ‘the horrible females,’ she’ll never confess it to herself. Probably
+she’d have to shoot herself, if she admitted it. God grant, that she
+never becomes conscious.”
+
+The only person whose hand Myra wished to shake once more was Eccarius.
+There was much sympathy in his face. Perhaps Luisa Peters had informed
+him of more than Myra gave her credit for knowing.
+
+“There is something that you still have to tell me,” said Myra with an
+attempt at smiling, “I’ve often thought of it on sleepless nights and
+have wanted to ask you—and then I’ve always forgotten. Do you remember
+when we were walking out to Mrs. Hersfeld’s one day”—a sudden shyness
+prevented her from mentioning Sophie’s name—“I said that my motto would
+be ‘Love life and be not afraid of death!’ But you wanted to turn the
+motto around....”
+
+“Yes,” Eccarius nodded gravely. “‘Love death and be not afraid of life!’
+Or in other words, and this is my life’s motto, a good motto for a long
+journey, ‘No one ought to die until he has learned to love death!’”
+
+
+
+
+                                  XVI
+
+
+   Somewhere
+   The long white roads lead well away:
+   Somewhere
+   Will lead me home on earth, some day.
+
+Myra was sitting on the terrace with the older women, with Mrs. Peters,
+with Mrs. Borgessen, with Mrs. Wietinghoff, and with the young Mrs.
+Vandahl who because of her condition felt a little awkward and preferred
+to sit still in her basket-chair rather than amuse herself with the
+“young people” in the garden.
+
+Nearly all the women had some knitting in hand at which they worked more
+or less attentively. The conversation flowed along quietly, without
+haste, but also without stopping.
+
+Myra looked down at the white net through which, also without haste but
+without stopping, she plied her needle in and out, silently rejoicing
+that she did not need to take part in the conversation. All she had to
+do was keep her eyes on her work. She need only look up and speak when
+she was spoken to. As a result, she seemed demure and young-girlish, and
+nobody ever suspected what a gloriously comfortable feeling that was.
+
+She had sat on that terrace frequently in the last few months, but that
+day for the first time she felt the beauty of the garden, the quiet
+voices beside her, the clear calls from the tennis court,
+everything—colors, fragrances, sounds—with a sense of ease and comfort
+and grateful enjoyment.
+
+For weeks and weeks she had lived in a state of secret apprehension like
+a criminal in flight. A hundred times, she thought she saw Gisela or
+heard her voice. A hundred times, when she tore open a letter from Luisa
+Peters, she expected to read that Gisela had come to some horrible end.
+A hundred times her heart had throbbed so violently that she had had to
+struggle for breath. And a hundred times her fear and anxiety had been
+unnecessary.
+
+She often repeated to herself that there was really no need to fear a
+scandal, since the opinion and favor of these people was of no account
+to her anyway. And yet there were moments when she had to confess to
+herself that it would be less terrible to learn of Gisela’s death than
+to see her suddenly appear from somewhere—here on the terrace of the
+Peters’ house, for example. Some vexatious scene was sure to result, an
+unsavory scene of which she would willy-nilly be the central figure. She
+could picture it to herself down to the smallest detail, so that she
+would turn pale and blush, and the blood would hammer in her veins.
+
+More than once she resolved to affect an astonished and injured
+expression, a bewildered smile. When she had found her poise
+sufficiently to deny the acquaintanceship, they would, they must take
+Gisela for a mad woman and have her put out by the servants.
+
+Myra went over and over it during her sleepless nights. She saw Gisela’s
+face as distorted with hate and pain and vengeance as at that moment
+when she had flung her glass after Fiametta.
+
+And she would hear herself saying in a very clear and calm voice, “I am
+so frightfully sorry, Mrs. Peters, to be the occasion of such a scene in
+your house. But I assure you I have never seen this—lady before in my
+life.”
+
+It would make a very good impression if she paused for a moment before
+the word “lady,” much better than if she were to say “person.”
+
+Perhaps it would be cleverer yet to go right up to Gisela and speak to
+her in a big sister tone. “Won’t you tell me where I have met you
+before? Where did you learn my name? I know you, of course, but for the
+moment I can’t recollect—won’t you help me? Did we perhaps go to school
+together?”
+
+Or might she not produce the best impression by playing the terrified
+maiden, by fleeing behind a chair and trembling, or by seeking
+protection from the ladies. “Help me! What does she want with me? Do you
+understand what she wants with me? Do you know her? Do you know who she
+is?”
+
+Yes, perhaps that would be the most natural course for a well-bred and
+somewhat timid young lady when attacked by a lunatic....
+
+She would lie, lie to the limit—although she really did not care very
+much for the opinion of Mrs. Peters, or the opinion of Mrs. Borgessen.
+But she wanted peace, she wanted to be completely enveloped in an
+invulnerable cloak of propriety and convention. She wanted never again
+to be exposed, never again to let the shirt be torn from her shoulders.
+Never again should a contemptuous glance strike her. Her skin had become
+sensitive, so incredibly sensitive—a glance in which she did not read
+kindliness and friendliness hurt her.
+
+Oh, how well she understood Olga Radó, who had denied her, pitilessly
+denied and handed her over. She had been hunted till she was worn out.
+Her skin had been seared with contemptuous glances. She could not endure
+another glance and did not mean to. She was afraid of glances, her fear
+of them amounted to the paltriest cowardice.
+
+But she had not been afraid of a loaded revolver....
+
+Now Myra had reached the same pass.
+
+She was prepared to die rather than endure contempt. And prepared to
+lie, with a straight face, with a clear voice, to lie cold-bloodedly,
+not for any personal advantage, not ever for the sake of respect, but
+from shame, from the profoundest, most abysmal shame, in order that the
+protecting mantle might not be stripped from her naked soul.
+
+Of course, she had never loved Gisela. But sometimes it seemed to her as
+if she were capable of denying even her greatest and most sacred love.
+
+That was when she trembled with fear of the Moebius girls. Might it not
+be that she would suddenly see Fannie’s and Emmie’s reddish blonde heads
+bob up? Might she not suddenly confront one of them, totally unprepared?
+
+Yes, and in this case it would do no good to declare them insane. No one
+would ever question the sound intelligence of the Moebius girls.
+Certainly no one here.
+
+But what could they convict her of after all! Myra could meet every
+attack with a counter-attack. Myra had met Olga Radó at the Moebius
+house. “Our cousin,” they had proudly called her then. All she need do
+was inquire of them about their “relative,” and ask with surprise if it
+were true that Olga Radó was dead. Had she really shot herself?
+
+Only, she must not weep as she asked it....
+
+And whenever Myra thought that she must not weep, the tears would begin
+streaming down her face.
+
+But presently she would grow calmer. She was no longer thinking of the
+possibility of such encounters. The last year seemed to her somewhat
+unreal, vague and meaningless. The memory of Olga Radó persisted. But
+she now remembered most vividly the first period of their friendship,
+and the pure adoration she had felt for Olga’s intellectual superiority,
+her accomplished manner, the distinguished and captivating quality of
+her entrances and exits. Myra was inclined to think less frequently of
+her burning tenderness, of the agony of a farewell which could not even
+be called a farewell—less frequently of her death.
+
+Sometimes she would find a touching and painful pleasure in imaging that
+Olga was still living and would suddenly appear in these circles. Among
+these elegant, assured and clever women, she would be the most elegant,
+the most assured, the cleverest. If she but wished, she would succeed in
+ravishing this cool, reserved and self-conscious company in half an
+hour.
+
+But the more clearly she had visualized the picture of the living Olga,
+the more her remembrance had paled in the last few months. Now and again
+it seemed to her like the giddy whirl of carnival night, and she was
+convinced that no one had a right to discuss a confidence of that time,
+any more than one had a right to remind a lady in the sober light of day
+that one had kissed her under her mask at the carnival carouse.
+
+Myra had taken off her mask and costume. She was once more Myra Rudloff,
+and it would have been tactless to allude to any fugitive half forgotten
+connections.
+
+So completely was she Myra Rudloff that she sometimes wondered if there
+were not someone of her own name to whom she could attach herself or
+whom she could attach to herself.
+
+So weary was she of her young freedom.
+
+Or perhaps of its restriction.
+
+If she had an older relative with her, she could take lodgings and live
+more according to her taste. For, of course, it was forbidden her to
+live alone, just as she must not stay at a hotel, and just as there were
+a very few pensions, coffee-houses, restaurants and even streets that
+she might frequent.
+
+Sometimes it struck her as absurd when people said in quite shocked
+voices, “Good Heavens, you mustn’t go there. One can see that you’re a
+stranger here!”
+
+But she always acquiesced. She knew too well that she herself had lost
+her standards. For a while she had thought defiantly that she was old
+and stable enough to permit herself any associates, any book, any manner
+of life. Then she had found out that she could not swim in the troubled,
+swirling waters into which she had plunged. When she was close to
+drowning her pride had forsaken her and she was submissive and grateful
+that a firm hand had pulled her out.
+
+She no longer felt secure. She had thought she could plunge into the sea
+without danger—now she was glad when expert hands prepared her bath for
+her.
+
+Sometimes she was slightly embarrassed when an astonished glance rested
+upon her because she let slip that she had read a book, or seen a play
+which were strictly forbidden to young ladies of “her station.”
+
+Sometimes she had to fight down a free and easy manner that had become
+so natural to her in the last few months that she noticed nothing
+improper in it.
+
+Sometimes she thought almost with gratitude of Aunt Emily. At least she
+had taught Myra how to hold her knife and fork, and it would have been
+bad had she had to pay attention to such details and live in fear of
+violating etiquette. But in all matters of form, her “good training” had
+become blood of her blood.
+
+From time to time she was in doubt as to whether a young lady of good
+family might go alone to the opera, or might be invited by an
+acquaintance whom she had met in the city to partake of a tart in a
+pastry-shop. Then she would think in a flash, “What would Aunt Emily say
+in so difficult a dilemma?” And as Aunt Emily averred nearly everything
+to be unseemly, reprehensible and immoral, Myra could feel in obeying
+her that she was leading a blameless-life, even in the eyes of the
+sternest critic.
+
+She had already considered if the most sensible course were not simply
+to summon Aunt Emily. Then she would have the infallible oracle in all
+matters of propriety at her elbow. She could rent a house, take the
+furniture out of storage, have a home, receive visitors, give little
+parties. Besides, there was no occasion for contentions of any sort.
+Even Aunt Emily could have nothing to say against her present
+associates.
+
+Myra was tamed. It made quite a difference whether one viewed the world,
+the blooming laughing world, always from the inside of a cage, against
+whose bars one continually batted one’s head and wings in an effort to
+escape, if just for once. Or whether one were flying back, tired out at
+evening, somewhat scratched and ruffled, to steal voluntarily into the
+comfortable cage and find refuge there.
+
+Of course, the door would always remain open now, Myra was of age.
+
+Instantly she recalled that she had come of age a few months too late.
+Otherwise Olga Radó would still be living, living with her, free at last
+of all cares and debts and worries, in a beautiful cozy home such as she
+had always wanted. She would be alive and happy, her laugh would still
+ring out for the world’s delight—and her bell-toned voice, and her
+beautiful proud face and her delicate, strong hands. Yes, none of these
+would have been destroyed, annihilated, extinguished—had there been no
+Aunt Emily.
+
+And hate blazed up in Myra again like a red flame.
+
+The voices from the tennis court drew nearer. White flannels flashed
+amongst the blackish-red foliage of a purple-beech and the golden-yellow
+leaves of a maple. The first pair turned the corner, passed the
+rose-trellis, and approached the terrace—Gwen and Fred Wietinghoff.
+
+Mrs. Peters smiled in greeting to her beautiful daughter. The smile
+still further revealed her long prominent, rather uneven teeth, stopped
+with all kinds of fillings, embellished with specks of white porcelain,
+encircled with threads of gold as fine as a hair. Her teeth were the
+same color as the big dull gray pearl in her beautifully shaped ear and
+gave the same impression of some infinitely fragile, infinitely precious
+object which must be preserved at any price and with the most tender
+solicitude. Without the teeth her regular, somewhat withered but haughty
+features, crowned by a pile of carefully waved blonde hair carefully
+restrained by a net, regardless of fashion, might almost have been
+called handsome.
+
+She smiled proudly and complacently. She had every right to.
+
+Myra was delighted anew by the lovely firm way in which Gwen set down
+her tiny foot with its springy ankle, and by the slender firm body under
+its white dress, and the curly hair glistening and fluttering in the
+sunlight.
+
+The sight of her filled Myra’s heart with a buoyant delight—but it did
+not throb faster by a single beat.
+
+She was just as pleased to see Fred Wietinghoff, who was walking beside
+Gwen. He was much taller than she, broad-shouldered, and narrow in the
+hips, all the contours of his muscles showing under his silk shirt. He
+looked like a twenty-year-old. But when the light fell on his face, a
+network of sharp little wrinkles was visible in his clear, golden brown
+skin around his eyes and mouth, and a few white threads in his smooth
+metallic blond hair, at the temples.
+
+But she was pleased, too, when she saw Vandahl whose eager eyes were
+seeking out his young wife from a distance, and blinking a greeting to
+her.
+
+And she was pleased when she saw Henry Rantzau and young Lucius appear
+behind the others, plunged as deeply in conversation, which the younger
+man was accompanying with sweeping gestures, as if they were strolling
+somewhere across a lonely field, and not going to meet a group of people
+who were expecting and watching them.
+
+“My dears, I’m dying of thirst!” It was Gwen’s first utterance as she
+took the last steps of the terrace at a bound.
+
+She ran to the tea-wagon behind Myra, and poured raspberry juice and ice
+water into a cut-glass goblet.
+
+With the utmost composure, Fred took the goblet from her as she was
+about to carry it to her lips and drained it at a draught.
+
+“What is the meaning of that?” she asked amazed and angry.
+
+“I’m sacrificing myself for you again,” he said with unshakable
+equanimity. “I’ve warned you against inflaming your lungs. I beg you,
+when you are thirsty, drink tea. May I pour you a cup?”
+
+“I _will_ drink water!” Gwen stamped her foot in annoyance. “Give me
+that carafe, I’m dying of thirst!”
+
+“You won’t die of thirst for some time yet,” replied Fred. “You’re
+really hardly thirsty at all, but since you’ve never suffered from
+thirst in your life you have no standards by which to judge. Drink a cup
+of lukewarm tea, it will be very good for you.”
+
+“But I don’t want lukewarm tea,” said Gwen between laughter and anger.
+“I drink hot tea in winter and ice water in summer. I’m going to drink
+water and if I get inflammation of the lungs, it’s no concern of yours.”
+
+“Good heavens,” said Fred pityingly, “what a little sixteen-year-old!
+You’re not so young any more that you make yourself ‘cute’ that way.
+Probably you think it’s very romantic to toss off a glass of ice water
+in a fit of youthful impetuosity when you’re overheated with playing,
+and then be carried off by inflammation of the lungs in the flower of
+your youth.” He was sitting on the arm of a basket-chair, swinging his
+foot in its heelless shoe. “Inflammation of the lungs is a horrid malady
+with phlegm and spittle—not in the least poetic. In fact, there is no
+poetic sickness.” He straightened his shoulders slightly. “Only health
+is poetic, but everything from a saber cut to typhus is prosaic and
+disgusting and mostly connected with bad smells.”
+
+“Oh, Fred, you’re disgusting.” She turned her back on him. “You’re
+positively not fit to enter a drawing-room. I’m going to tell your
+mother so.”
+
+“She’ll think you’re slandering me!” He smiled complacently and somewhat
+mischievously. “She knows you can’t bear me.”
+
+Vandahl had moved a stool beside his young wife’s chair. Myra observed
+how his big well-formed hands caressed the folds of her dress
+stealthily.
+
+A radiant stream of tenderness was constantly playing on him from her
+soft brown eyes.
+
+Myra was a little anxious on her account. She looked so happy, and
+apparently worshipped her husband so idolatrously. If only she had
+finished with her hours of pain! The wish burned in Myra’s heart like a
+mute prayer.
+
+Rantzau and Lucius were leaning against the stone balustrade. Myra could
+catch disjointed fragments of their conversation when the others were
+silent.
+
+“Why not? The electrons that are thrown off by the so-called cathode
+rays have a velocity of something like a quarter of a million kilometer
+seconds.”
+
+It was Rantzau’s deep, vibrant voice.
+
+Gwen seated herself on the arm of Myra’s chair and put her arm around
+her shoulders.
+
+“Protect me, Myra,” she said, “everybody makes me angry and seems horrid
+to me. You are the only person here whom I really like!”
+
+“Oh, Gwen,” Myra smiled up at her, “it’s a good thing that you don’t
+have to cross any bridges tonight!”
+
+Gwen’s face grew serious. “I’ll kill somebody yet,” she said as if she
+were telling a fairy-tale, “and I’ll bury the corpse in a cellar and
+steal everything valuable and bury that in the forest. Then I’ll go
+somewhere, to the courts, to the police or the senate and tell
+everything. Then everybody will laugh and pity me and say, ‘Poor child,
+she has a fever, she’s delirious—that’s Mr. Peters’ little daughter! get
+a car, and take the youngster home, her mother ought to pack her off to
+bed, she’s got the measles.’ And then the bailiff or an officer will
+take me home so that nothing may happen to me on the way. Oh, Myra have
+you had any of the short-cake? Deuli makes them simply divine! They make
+life worth living. But I’ve never yet been able to eat enough of them.
+I’ve stipulated that when I get married I want you to give me a bath-tub
+full of short-cakes. And on my wedding-day I’ll eat short-cake from
+morning till night. Eat something, Myra—I really believe that you live
+on air and love.”
+
+“On air perhaps,” said Fred dryly, “as far as I can judge your
+consumption of the other so-called popular commodity, I couldn’t last a
+week on your rations.”
+
+Myra took good care not to understand his remark.
+
+“I’d like to live on air,” she said, breathing in the breeze that came
+from the garden. Despite the fragrance of the roses, it was strong and
+sharp and smelled a little of the sea. “On pure fresh air!”
+
+
+
+
+                                  XVII
+
+
+Myra sat beside Gwen in the car.
+
+“My hair looks something terrible, doesn’t it?” said Gwen. “If mamma
+sees me like this, she’ll begin to lecture me. How do you manage to keep
+your hair in place? You danced too! Mamma would be delighted with you.
+In fact, mamma likes you a whole lot. She’s always holding you up to me
+as a model. But even that doesn’t make me dislike you. I’m really quite
+smitten with you, really—but I think you don’t like me.”
+
+Myra laid her arms lightly around her shoulder.
+
+“Silly little Gwen,” she said, smiling. “You don’t know what you’re
+chattering.”
+
+“That’s nice,” said Gwen, cuddling up to her like a little kitten,
+“leave your arm there, it feels nice. I know very well what I’m talking
+about. Mamma always says ‘Don’t talk, you’re dizzy with dancing,’
+because she insists that I talk so much nonsense after a dance—more than
+usual. But I’m really not dizzy with dancing, and I know that I like you
+a lot, and I know too that you don’t like me. And you don’t contradict
+me either, you’re much too honest for that. You say, ‘Don’t talk
+nonsense, little Gwen,’ which is what people always tell little children
+when they happen to hit on the truth. But I don’t want to embarrass you.
+Your eyes look very sad now because you don’t know how you’re going to
+get out of this mess.”
+
+“I was thinking,” said Myra honestly, “that you are a very charming
+little creature and that I like you very much indeed—and that
+nevertheless I disavowed you today and said you were not my friend.”
+
+“At the table,” said Gwen seriously, “I felt it. But it doesn’t make me
+angry with you.” She smiled. “You oughtn’t to admit it either, if you
+want to keep in the good graces of my dear Henry. Did he tell you what a
+beast I am?”
+
+“He said nothing at all,” replied Myra, shocked. “How on earth did you
+know that I said it to Rantzau?”
+
+“Because I know _him_!” said Gwen triumphantly. “He hates me like—like
+sin would hardly be the proper expression. But I know he does, and I
+know why.”
+
+By these words and by the expression of Gwen’s face Myra felt somewhat
+repelled. “She’s like every other woman,” she thought contemptuously.
+“She thinks that Henry Rantzau hates her because he loves her and she
+doesn’t love him! Now she’ll tell me that she broke with him on some
+occasion. It’s the only thing that these little creatures can get
+through their heads.”
+
+“Shall I tell you why your friend hates me?” A thousand little imps were
+dancing on Gwen’s face.
+
+“If you like,” said Myra somewhat coolly.
+
+“I’ve taken his friend away from him!”
+
+“What does that mean—taking a friend away? Can a woman take a man’s
+friend away from him?”
+
+“From Henry? Oh, yes! For he wants his friend all to himself, hair and
+hide, body and soul. Don’t try to pretend, dear little Miss Innocence,
+that you haven’t noticed what the whole town knows!”
+
+“Strange,” Myra shook her head, “all that a town knows!”
+
+“Stranger yet is all that it doesn’t know!” said Gwen with a laugh. “All
+that goes on in its midst without anybody’s suspecting it. But Rantzau
+is known because he’s a public menace. He has an influence over young
+men that is nothing short of uncanny. He’s always got a circle around
+him that idolizes him. And I don’t like that....”
+
+“You mean when somebody else is idolized?” teased Myra.
+
+“Yes, exactly,” declared Gwen defiantly. “That one thing I can’t stand
+at all is to see a man idolized by men. I don’t know if I can explain
+it, but you see the essential thing about human beings is their sex. The
+great two-fold division of all life—it’s not my own idea, of course.
+Later on there’s the division into races, with the races dividing into
+nations, the nations into classes and families, each of them struggling
+against the others. I am a bourgeois as compared with the nobility and
+an aristocrat as compared with the plebs. But first and foremost I am a
+woman in contrast to a man, and the most unpardonable insult that can be
+offered me is one to my sex. Don’t you understand that? If a man can’t
+see me because he worships another woman, that doesn’t wound my vanity.
+But a man for whom no woman is good enough, who prefers men, who is
+contemptuous of my whole sex—oh, it drives me almost insane with anger.
+Rantzau is incorruptible—I know that—but I lure away his favorites, one
+after the other. Ever since I could think, no, ever since I could feel,
+we’ve waged a bitter war. Do you know, Myra, sometimes it seems like a
+holy mission to me and not just an amusing game!” There was a strange
+light in her eyes, they blazed like blue jewels. “He loved Fred Reimer,
+for example, loved him insanely. But Fred is very happily married today.
+What do I get out of it? Well, sometimes when I see his wife, I think,
+‘You owe it to me and you never even suspect it.’”
+
+“What a queer mixture you are.” Myra looked at her, shaking her head
+reflectively. “A well-bred, sheltered girl and yet....”
+
+“And yet? Go ahead and say it!”
+
+“Oh, nothing. But tell me, how does it happen that your parents don’t
+notice anything—Henry Rantzau, for instance, whose reputation the whole
+town knows?”
+
+“Don’t you know, Myra,” said Gwen with a superior smile, “that parents
+have an unerring eye only for what doesn’t exist?”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+“I’m coming out directly,” called Gwen from behind the door of the
+bathroom where one could hear the splashing of water and the pelting of
+a shower. “Take a seat, Myra, and pick up a book! I’ll be ready in five
+minutes.”
+
+“I have time,” said Myra quietly.
+
+But Gwen wished to shorten her wait for her. “You’ll find something to
+look at. There’s a package on the table. I bought myself some stockings
+today. See if you don’t think they’re stunning. But you mustn’t open
+what’s under them, something flat in tissue paper. Ah, I’ll show it to
+you anyhow. Go ahead and open it!”
+
+“I’m not curious.”
+
+“Go on, go on, open it. It’s better that you should look at it when I’m
+not there. Then I won’t have to blush at least. Hurry up, I’ll be out in
+two minutes! Do you hear? I’m already emerging from the crystal flood,
+and when I’m halfway dry, I’ll be out there!”
+
+Myra removed the tissue paper. She looked into Fred Wietinghoff’s face,
+lifelike and expressive. She felt a flash of pleasure pass over her as
+she studied the handsome features, and almost at the same moment a
+childish desire to steal the picture so that she could always have it
+before her eyes, and could delight in it when she was far from here.
+
+For she was perfectly conscious at that moment, without thinking about
+it at all, that she would leave Hamburg in a very short time. She had
+never yet thought of the change, but suddenly she saw herself with
+visionary distinctness, so self-evidently that there was nothing
+terrifying about it, in a state of loneliness in which this picture
+would make pleasant company for her.
+
+She started when Gwen leaned over her shoulder.
+
+“Handsome picture, what?” she laughed. “You started so just now that I
+might imagine you have a little weakness for the gentleman. Confess the
+truth, Myra! Out with it. You were so lost in the picture, so lost that
+you didn’t hear me coming.”
+
+Myra put down the picture without glancing at it again.
+
+“Because my thoughts were somewhere else entirely,” she said, still
+rather distractedly.
+
+“Too bad,” teased Gwen, “where else if not with Fred? Certainly not with
+me, I’m afraid. Very far off? Don’t you want to tell me where?”
+
+She laid her soft bare arm around Myra’s neck, pressing it against her
+cheeks.
+
+“I don’t know where myself,” said Myra. “Not in the past and not in the
+present. Somewhere I’ve never yet been. Perhaps in the future. I have a
+feeling, quite indistinct and hazy, of a snowed-up lonely house.”
+
+Gwen shook her by the shoulders.
+
+“Come out of it,” she cried, “you’re supposed to be here and not in any
+snowed-up lonely houses. How do you like our friend, Freddy?”
+
+“_Our_ friend?” repeated Myra with a smile.
+
+“Of course ours. He’s your friend as much as mine. He thinks a great
+deal of you, a great deal!”
+
+“He only says that to make you jealous,” said Myra consolingly.
+
+“Make me jealous!” Gwen laughed aloud. “No, I’m not that petty. And
+besides, you mean too much to me. I’m always very proud, really, my
+heart is filled with pleasure when I hear people praising you. And Fred
+praises you very often....”
+
+“He would send me his picture if he really thought so much of me,”
+thought Myra. “If it weren’t all just silly talk, he’d send me his
+picture. I don’t want anything more of him than that.”
+
+“Do you really like him?” Gwen asked it lightly. But Myra felt something
+watchful, almost lowering in her look.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+“He’s good looking and has a very agreeable disposition,” she said
+indifferently.
+
+“Nothing more?”
+
+Myra did not want to reply. “I don’t know much more about him.”
+
+“He is discreet and trustworthy,” said Gwen after hesitating a moment.
+Then she laughed through her teeth, “And he has very good taste!”
+
+“Perhaps,” said Myra somewhat guardedly.
+
+Sometimes she had a feeling of fear in the presence of this fair-haired
+child. Frequently she was afraid to put a question because she did not
+want to hear the answer—an answer that would tear off the thin covering
+of the abyss.
+
+Suddenly Gwen stroked her cheeks with a childish gesture.
+
+“Don’t be angry,” she said gently.
+
+Myra laid her lips against that soft little fragrant hand.
+
+“Why should I be angry at you, you child?” she asked, smiling.
+
+But she knew very well that she had been angry.
+
+“Tell me something!” begged Gwen. “Yes, sit right down beside me here
+and tell me something. I’ll lie down, I’m a little tired from my bath,
+and you sit beside me and we’ll jaw a little.”
+
+With one hand she drew Myra fawningly to the divan, with the other she
+held together her kimono of peach-bloom china crêpe which showed every
+line of her slim, soft body.
+
+She adjusted her mountain of pillows and made herself comfortable on it.
+
+Myra sat quiet and erect beside her on a chair. She always felt rather
+stiff in the presence of so much sinuous grace, and a little frosty in
+the warm breath of this sunny creature.
+
+“Do you know, Myra,” said Gwen after a while, “that I haven’t got a step
+closer to you since the first day you came here? You allow me to call
+you by your first name. Sometimes you call me by mine, but mostly you
+omit it because it’s so counter to your nature. No, no, you don’t have
+to make a polite denial! You are quite a stranger to me. Never, never,
+never do you tell me anything of your own volition. Sometimes you’ll
+answer one out of ten of my questions. I don’t even trust myself to ask
+you questions any more for fear I’ll frighten you away so that you’ll
+never come back again.”
+
+“And what do I know of you either?” asked Myra without looking at her.
+“You are just as much of a stranger to me. You have a very childlike and
+open nature. My own, perhaps, is more reserved and cold, but there may
+be a hundred times bigger and more serious secrets hidden behind your
+innocent little mask than behind my reticence.”
+
+“That’s still another matter,” Gwen interrupted sharply. “I can’t ever
+tell you anything, either, because you always put me off! Many times I
+feel the need of confiding in you, something that is worrying me, or
+simply occupying my attention. But you always turn me aside, or you make
+such a face that the words stick in my throat. As if, Heaven help you,
+you didn’t want to know anything about me, in order not to despise me.
+Or as if you already knew too much and were afraid of permitting any
+affection. Then again I feel that you really are not cold and lacking in
+understanding, you are not a prude, and you have no right to be.... Oh,
+Myra, don’t be angry with me for saying that! But you can never make me
+believe that you’ve spent your life sitting and knitting in a quiet
+friendly way with a lot of old ladies.”
+
+Myra laughed. “I’ve never tried to make you think so.”
+
+“But you act that way,” said Gwen hopelessly. “You’re like a stone that
+won’t give off a spark no matter how hard you strike it. Oh, Myra, I
+can’t get rid of the feeling that I could strike a whole series of
+fireworks out of you—such glorious fireworks! Am I not steel enough, or
+what is the matter? It torments me terribly....”
+
+She was so shaken with emotion that the tears came into her eyes. She
+stretched her limbs as if in convulsions and tore the silk cushions with
+her teeth.
+
+Suddenly she sat up, and throwing her arms around Myra’s neck, rubbed
+her face, between tears and laughter, against her shoulder.
+
+“Tell me, Myra,” she wheedled, “tell me what I’ve known for a long time.
+Some time in your life you have been in love with a woman. You know how
+it can be—how heavenly it can be! Why don’t you like me, Myra? Am I not
+good enough for you? Not beautiful enough? Or do you think I haven’t had
+any experience? Or do you think I’d betray you? Why don’t you say
+something? Do you despise me so that you don’t think I’m worth an
+answer?”
+
+Myra gritted her teeth and sat a little more stiffly. “I don’t know, my
+child,” she said with a labored smile and lifeless eyes. “I don’t know
+what you’re talking about. Why do you suspect me of such a thing?”
+
+“Stop!” said Gwen almost angrily, laying her hand on Myra’s mouth. “I
+don’t suspect anything—I _know_! You can keep quiet as long as you like.
+I’ll never force you to tell me, but I won’t let myself be deceived. And
+I won’t let myself be pointed out as a mad woman. I know that I’m right.
+Not because, as you’re thinking now, I’ve heard some gossip. I have a
+feeling for such things. Dear little Myra, if you were to sit in front
+of your mirror for a week and practice a face for me like a stone mask,
+it would still bear the stamp. Your hands would have it, and your
+eyelids and the corner of your mouth—here—this corner of your dear
+proud, yearning mouth. Promise me, Myra, promise me one thing—I believe
+that you live like a saint and want to live that way—but I know too,
+that you can’t. You can’t do it much longer. But when it gets too much
+for you, call me. I would like to kiss you until your yearning mouth is
+quite sated. I would like to see you bloom in all your tenderness you
+rose of Jericho! And if I could not bring it about, at least I should
+like to be present. Oh, Myra, you’re making a face as if I were saying
+hateful things. The ecstasy of the beautiful human body _is_ beautiful,
+and the throbbing pulse and the gasping breath of someone we love is the
+most beautiful music in the world. Everything else, art and sport, and
+alcohol and morphine, are just miserable attempts at substitutes for the
+one real thing—for love.”
+
+“So many things are called love!” said Myra with a bitter taste in her
+mouth.
+
+“I call love the thrill of the blood and the ravishment of the senses.
+And it is something I should like to give everybody.” Gwen sat up and
+the soft silk slid from her wonderfully modelled shoulders. Her eyes
+blazed with blue fire.
+
+“Well, not everybody, but the beautiful, the profound, the warm, the
+sensitive, those who hunger and those who thirst, and I would like to
+give it to them because I am capable of giving it, because I am rich,
+because God has given it to me. And God gives no man anything to keep
+for himself but He cannot be too lavish because He has to give to so
+many. We are here as God’s stewards, we are here to save Him trouble,
+that is why He gives us so much, in order that we may share it with the
+most worthy.”
+
+Myra shook her head. “You talk like the angel in a Christmas story, and
+you come out with these lovely theories in a Christmas story voice.
+Sometimes I have a feeling that you have no idea what you are saying.
+You are like a strip of garden in which a strange hand has strewn all
+possible seeds, so that it is surprised itself at all the gay flowers
+that come to light. But I am afraid I know the gardener who has made
+such a wildflower garden out of you!”
+
+“Myra,” wheedled Gwen, “tell me one thing, please, please, tell me. Are
+you in love with Fred?”
+
+“Nonsense,” said Myra in a hard voice. “What makes you think such a
+thing?”
+
+“Perhaps not love,” said Gwen hesitantly, “perhaps you call ‘love’
+something else. But don’t you feel that he’s wonderfully stimulating?”
+
+Myra made a face, and without answering, rose and went to the window.
+She heard the soft silk behind her rustle and crinkle. Gwen thrust her
+sinuous body between Myra and the window-pane, beyond which lay the
+wintry garden. Her angelic face was suffused with red. Her large eyes
+under their long lashes were filled with tears. Her blonde hair, tousled
+and damp from her bath, trembled in ringlets and curls about her
+childish face.
+
+She pursed her lips as if she were struggling against violent tears and
+clung to the folds of Myra’s waist with her soft little hands.
+
+“Do you dislike me so much?” she asked shyly. “Do you? Am I really so
+distasteful to you?”
+
+Laughing, Myra kissed her round firm cheeks with their peach-bloom
+complexion.
+
+“You are very sweet!” she said sincerely.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+“I’d rather not,” said Myra, knitting her brows slightly.
+
+“Myra!” Gwen stamped her foot angrily. “I can’t understand you! How can
+it hurt you to go too? And you would be pleasing me so much! We had it
+planned so nicely. Really no sensible person can see anything wrong in
+our going together....”
+
+“But your parents,” Myra objected.
+
+“You will simply be doing them a favor if you don’t let me go alone to
+visit a bachelor in his apartment! For I’m going anyway! But it would be
+much nicer if you’d come too. And Fred will show you his library!”
+
+That was the only thing that could tempt Myra as Gwen knew very well.
+
+Myra would very much have liked to see the rooms and the books. She felt
+something akin to envy when she thought that Gwen and Fred would enjoy
+tea and a pleasant hour of conversation in what was undoubtedly a very
+pretty and tasteful apartment—while she would not be there. Because of
+stubbornness, because of obstinacy, because of a silly shyness.
+
+She had done many other things which had still less to do with
+conventionality and propriety. She had done them from passion, from
+caprice, from pity—or from stupidity. For the first time in her life she
+was anxiously resisting an innocent dereliction from the conventional
+such as this tea with a young unmarried man.
+
+Suddenly all her defiance rose within her. Why should she deny herself a
+pleasure because these well-born and highly conventional families could
+thenceforth refuse to receive her in their expensively furnished and
+meticulously clean houses? Let these families first so educate their
+sons and daughters that they did not wantonly strive to disturb the
+hard-won peace of a poor defenseless Myra Rudloff.
+
+“I’ll go with you,” she said, gritting her teeth.
+
+Gwen clasped her jubilantly in her arms.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+A soft, but bright light streamed over a noble polished table. Gleaming
+bronze. Deep luxurious carpets.
+
+“Isn’t it beautiful here?” asked Gwen, and strutted about proudly,
+showing this and extolling that as if it were all her property, or
+rather her own handiwork.
+
+She moved through the rooms with an assurance that gave no indication
+that she was visiting them for the first time.
+
+“And you must see the Corot!” Whereupon she rushed into the adjoining
+room, and lit a concealed lamp that cast a flood of light on the
+picture.
+
+Myra followed her, an ironic smile on her lips.
+
+“I thought I was supposed to go with you so that you could explore this
+place!” she murmured. “But you really seem to be quite at home here.”
+
+Gwen laughed, not in the least offended or embarrassed.
+
+“Haven’t I ever told you that I was here before? Not alone, of course. I
+came to tea then, too. Old Mrs. Wietinghoff was here and mamma. Wait,
+some member of my family was with me. Fred, who was with me when I had
+tea here before?”
+
+A newspaper rustled in the next room.
+
+“What did you say, dear?” came Fred’s voice.
+
+“Idiot!” she said in a low voice.
+
+Myra laughed too. It was very easy to see through the whole affair, and
+take in at a glance the tangle that a word had uncovered. She told
+herself that it was all right. But she did not feel any sincere
+pleasure. Her feelings said to her, “Go, you are superfluous here,
+perhaps even in the way. You are playing a part which has been forced
+upon you, and which doesn’t suit you.” But she would have scolded
+herself for being a silly prude if she had given in to this feeling and
+gone.
+
+Gwen put her arm around Myra and drew her toward the door.
+
+“What does Fred mean?” she asked as she stood in the door. “I don’t
+recall that we ever herded swine together.”
+
+Fred laid down the paper with some embarrassment.
+
+“Why the image, Miss Peters? I trust you will pardon me for glancing at
+the paper a moment while you ladies were out of the room. Have I
+absent-mindedly said something improper?”
+
+Gwen sat on the arm of a leather chair and dangled her legs.
+
+“Improper? Oh, no, it’s all right,” she said magnanimously. “You only
+addressed me familiarly through an error. You are so accustomed to
+having visitors whom you address familiarly, that it never even occurs
+to you to do anything else. Moreover, I just observed in the next room
+that you are an idiot!”
+
+“Which clarifies matters perfectly.” Fred bowed slightly. “But my dear
+Miss Rudloff,” he turned to Myra, “let us make the extraordinary and
+highly improbable assumption that I did not make a mistake in identity,
+but really blurted something out, as they say. It would simply be a
+further proof of how much inferior men are to women in the arts of lying
+and deception.
+
+“A woman simply could not blurt out something and address someone
+familiarly. She simply couldn’t carry damaging letters around in her
+coat pocket for a week just because she forgot to take them out and
+destroy them. She simply couldn’t be trapped under any circumstances.
+
+“But a man is so simple, so transparent, so trusting, so innocent....”
+His manner was intentionally sanctimonious.
+
+“Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!” Gwen interrupted. “Stop, my friend! The woman may be
+more discreet, more distrustful, more anxious—but only because she has
+more to fear. Once let a man get caught, let him be observed, or let him
+blurt out something, or let his correspondence be found—what then? He
+denies it! With a coolness, with a face as if—well, with cheek, in
+short! I know hundreds of cases....”
+
+“From your own experience?”
+
+“No, thank God! It ‘simply couldn’t happen to me in any case.’ But let
+me go on. You’re just afraid that I’ll say something to the point, and
+that’s why you’re trying to get me off the track....”
+
+“Why should I be afraid?”
+
+“Because you’re vain like all men. In the first place, you don’t like
+anybody but you to say something good, and in the second, you don’t like
+to feel that somebody sees through and through you.”
+
+“But _you_ haven’t let _me_ go on. I was going to say, why should I be
+afraid that you would say something good, something to the point? The
+fear would not be well founded.”
+
+“Oh, Myra, he’s common. Don’t you think he’s simply frightfully common
+to talk to me like that? But I’m going to say just what I wanted now,
+straight out. I know hundreds of cases of men who deceive their wives.
+And when the wife thinks she has finally got some irrefutable proof in
+her hands, when she has jealously watched her husband for weeks, and has
+finally seen him or found a letter—what happens then? Then the husband
+explains that his wife is blind or stupid, she is mistaken, or it was
+Miss Mayer with whom she saw him, or the letter is quite innocent, or it
+is a practical joke on the part of a crony. He goes into a rage or he
+laughs. In any event, he’s in the right....”
+
+“I’m astonished!” Fred leaned far back in his easy-chair, crossed his
+legs, joined his finger-tips and shook his head at her. “I am
+astonished! Such fullness of wisdom in such a little curly head! You
+must have had all the assembled washwomen, cooks and children’s maids of
+all your acquaintances instruct you in their marital experiences.”
+
+“Good heavens!” Gwen’s delicate nostrils twitched contemptuously. “As if
+the upper ten were any different! To be sure, they call their hang-out a
+Club. But they deceive their wives just the same.”
+
+“Those less decent souls excepted,” said Fred in his measured way, “who
+do not marry in order to escape that embarrassment. But may I add an
+observation to your argument, young lady? Why is the husband believed
+when he offers the most threadbare explanations, when he declares the
+most striking proof of his infidelity to be innocent? Because women are
+so anxious to believe! Why do the wives look for proofs? Because they
+want divorces? Oh, no! Because they want their fears quieted. How is a
+matter of no moment. There is no more ghastly bare brutality than to
+tell a jealous woman to her face, ‘You are quite right, I love somebody
+else!’ A fig for the man who could do such a thing!”
+
+“But why are women so petty and so—so horribly silly?” asked Gwen, her
+face blazing. “Why do they let themselves be deceived and rejoice when
+they are deceived still further?”
+
+Fred joined his finger-tips and reflected for a moment.
+
+“Perhaps it can be explained in a single sentence,” he said with a
+rather malicious smile. “Women always love most that which is closest to
+them, and men that which is farthest from them. Or to put it more
+clearly, a woman loves that man the most who has most often possessed
+her—and a man loves that woman the most whom he will never possess.”
+
+A shade of melancholy passed quickly over his face.
+
+“Shall we look at some illustrations?” he asked, springing up. “Have you
+any special preferences? Doré or Rackham, Cornelius of Bayros? They’re
+all here. See, this is beautiful! Do you feel the same enjoyment in
+handling buckskin? Or do you understand anyone’s taking a really insane
+delight in it? Just feel this,” he handed Myra a flexible volume in red
+leather. “Isn’t it splendid?”
+
+“Yes, it’s just like velvet!” said Gwen crossly, swinging her dangling
+legs faster.
+
+“Velvet!” He shrugged his shoulders indignantly. “This low little person
+is trying to provoke me! There are silly people who mean to flatter such
+leather by saying it’s like velvet! As a result, I have a real aversion
+to velvet. It always gives me a horrible dusty feeling under my
+finger-tips.”
+
+Myra opened the book. Her glance chanced on the graceful curlicues of an
+illustrator whose peculiar style was unfamiliar to her.
+
+“For God’s sake!” Fred laid both hands with fingers spread, on the pages
+of the book. “You may feel the books, but you mustn’t look at the
+pictures. They are not for young ladies. Afterwards, you’ll tell Auntie
+that I’ve been showing you improper pictures. But I really have young
+ladies’ books in my library and only keep this single volume because of
+its beautiful binding.”
+
+“Are they pictures that one shouldn’t look at?” asked Myra calmly. “I
+know a great many such and they always fascinate me.”
+
+“Of course, you may look at them.” Fred took his hands away and drew
+himself up. “I was only jesting. Any sensible person may look at and
+enjoy them. Look at them as much as you like. Moreover, the book is a
+rarity. It has been suppressed. You probably know that the illustrator
+has been banished?”
+
+“No,” said Myra in surprise. “I didn’t know it! But why?” She eagerly
+snatched at any subject of conversation that would permit her to take
+her eyes from the book. She was rather afraid to turn over the page, and
+even more afraid, if anything, of appearing prudish and cowardly if she
+put it down without looking through it.
+
+So she laid it open on her knees, glancing rather deliberately in the
+other direction—for example at Fred’s assured and reassuring face.
+
+“Why!” Fred shrugged his shoulders. “Probably a temperance union would
+expel Kotanyi Janos, too. Not because he drinks, but because he
+manufactures paprika and paprika helps along the thirst. Mankind is
+divided into four classes. Two of these classes, the extremes, belong
+together. The first class (sequence has nothing to do with rank or I
+would begin elsewhere) are those who thirst but do not drink. They are
+the happy ones. The second class comprises those who have thirst but
+nothing to drink. They are the revolutionists. The third class—those who
+have all they can drink but are not thirsty. The hypocrites and the
+bourgeois. The fourth class—those who drink and who are thirsty. They
+are the happiest of all.
+
+“Then, of course, there are numerous smaller subdivisions. For example,
+those who stand before a spring but cannot drink because they have no
+glass. Or those who drink and suffer stomach-aches afterwards. Or those
+who have a perfectly marvellous thirst, but eat something hot anyway, so
+that the hock will taste all the better afterwards. Or those who sit in
+a wine-cellar and go thirsty because there is no white Burgundy. And
+there are people to whom champagne only tastes good mixed with Port, or
+with Angostura, who like the sweetness only because there is a trace of
+bitterness along with it. Or people who pour dark and pale wines
+together, who mix heavy warm Bordeaux with thin-blooded bubbling
+champagne in order to make it fizz. Ah, yes, there are tipplers of all
+sorts, and each believes that his taste is the best. Here is Frederick
+the Great with Menzel’s illustrations; that looks better in your
+thoughtful hands. But first and foremost, there’s our tea inside,
+gentle, mild, friendly, thought-provoking tea—it will stimulate us to
+more profitable conversation. This way, ladies.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+One, two hours had passed. It was Gwen and not Myra who first glanced at
+her watch and said that they must go.
+
+Fred helped them on with their coats and kissed their hands in
+gratitude. They had to promise to come soon again. Myra promised gladly.
+The distinguished beauty of these rooms fascinated her. And Fred made a
+good impression, like most people, when seen among his own things. She
+looked forward with pleasure to the next chat they would have together.
+All the fear that had originally restrained her, had disappeared.
+
+But as she opened the heavy street door, she started and turned pale
+with terror.
+
+“For God’s sake, Gwen, stay back! Your uncle, Senator Borgessen is
+passing! Suppose he sees us! What shall we tell him if he asks us where
+we’re coming from?”
+
+“From the dentist!” said Gwen with a laugh, pushing Myra out on to the
+street. “People like Fred always live in houses where there are
+dentists. But Borgessen! Why should I be afraid of Borgessen? He has at
+least as much reason to be afraid of me as I of him! The whole town
+knows that he has an affair with his cook. Moreover, he goes to the city
+every three weeks and throws away his money gambling. He can’t do it so
+well here. His money and Aunt Fanchette’s. Poor Aunt Fanchette! But she
+smells of sweat from the arm-pits—brr! Haven’t you ever noticed it? Such
+women deserve their fate!”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The air was full of early spring.
+
+There had been terrible storms so that one could not sleep at night, but
+sat up in bed with a beating heart and listened to the clatter of the
+tiles on the roof, to the shaking of the windows, and the banging of
+doors and thought with a shiver of the ships at sea.
+
+Suddenly the storms had stopped for breath.
+
+So abruptly, so without warning, that the silence was even more uncanny
+than the commotion. The air was heavy, full of sunlight and sweetness,
+and a strange fragrance as if it had been borne over fields of hyacinths
+and had never known tar, fish or salt water.
+
+The people on the street looked at each other as if to say, “Well, what
+on earth do you think of the weather?” And wherever two acquaintances
+met, on the street, in the street car or in a shop, they said, “Well,
+what on earth do you think of the weather?” And all who heard it, made
+an effort to conceal a smile on their wooden faces, for they had just
+heard their innermost thoughts revealed.
+
+Myra could not conceal her smile. But there was something so
+ingratiating, so deluding, about this still, soft air, this caressing
+sunlight, all this quite improbable and impossible spring, that she was
+suffused with a warm happiness which sought some expression. And as she
+could not sing, she smiled.
+
+This was not occasioned by the spring alone. It was the feeling too that
+she could endure the spring without suffering. She felt well, like
+someone who moves his limbs for the first time after a long illness, and
+thinks every breath is a heavenly grace.
+
+“I’m well again,” she told herself over and over like the refrain of a
+song. “I’m well again, well again!”
+
+
+
+
+                                 XVIII
+
+
+Gwen and Myra were sitting in a compartment of the moving train. Two
+elderly ladies, black, stiff and erect, were sitting opposite, watching
+them sharply.
+
+From time to time, Fred would come through the aisle and make faces,
+with the desired result that Gwen nearly died laughing.
+
+But if she controlled herself with an effort, she did everything in her
+power to make Myra laugh.
+
+“Such shamelessness,” she said with pretended indignation. “Just see how
+that fellow stares in here every time he passes. Next time I’m going to
+report him to the conductor.”
+
+With an offended mien, she pushed her travelling cap on tighter in order
+to lean back and cross her legs.
+
+But Myra was not to be made to laugh by any such antic.
+
+“Oh, don’t imagine that he stares in here because he likes your
+appearance!” she said quietly. “He is either a criminal or a detective
+looking for a criminal. You can see that at a glance.”
+
+“Good heavens, no!” Gwen continued the game in the highest spirits.
+“Don’t frighten the wits out of me! I read such a horrible story the
+other day—about a hardened criminal who was travelling in women’s
+clothes. Of course he was smooth shaven. But he had such a heavy growth
+of beard that he had to shave twice a day.” She spoke in a low voice,
+though just loud enough so that attentive ears could catch every word.
+With that her glance strayed with intentional carelessness over the
+rather downy face of the lady sitting opposite. “Just imagine, he was
+alone in the compartment with a young woman, on a long journey, and she
+saw—of course, at first she thought she must be mistaken—but she saw
+more and more distinctly that the face of the lady sitting opposite was
+gradually becoming covered with a growth of stubble! It must have been
+terrible! I think I’d have died of shock. As it was, I made a resolution
+never to travel alone. That’s why I begged you so hard to come with me
+today.”
+
+“I was glad to do it,” Myra assumed a worried expression, “if only Emma
+will take good care of the children. Bubbie was coughing so hard again
+this morning.”
+
+This was too much even for Gwen. For a moment she stared at Myra’s
+immobile, serious face, then she burst out laughing, covering her mouth
+with her handkerchief and coughing in spasms.
+
+When at last they got off the train, they stood on the platform doubled
+up with laughter.
+
+Myra stared after the departing coaches. She had not been mistaken—a
+black-gloved hand rubbed the window clean, and a pointed nose was poked
+against it. An attentive glance followed her.
+
+Gwen raised her hand to wave farewell, but Myra held her arm.
+
+“Don’t,” Gwen tried to tear her arm away. “What do I care for the old
+witches? Good-bye, dear train, run along or run off the track! No,
+better not do that, there may be some nice people on you!”
+
+“Come,” said Myra, “Fred is standing here closing and buckling his
+travelling bag, just in order not to attract attention—like a real
+detective. But we agreed that we should leave the station first. Come.
+He’s looking quite desperately in our direction.”
+
+They passed through the gates and the waiting-room out on to the street,
+which lay in a glare of sunlight. Five minutes later, Fred approached
+and tipped his hat.
+
+“If I may make a suggestion to you ladies,” said Fred, “we will get my
+travelling bag from the station now, and armed with that, you can seek
+accommodations at a hotel. Ladies without luggage—that would never do!
+And you can’t tell every chambermaid and waiter the story about the lost
+last train.”
+
+“And you?” asked Gwen.
+
+“I’ll borrow some kind of a suitcase from an acquaintance. We can
+provide ourselves with the most essential requisites for spending the
+night here on our way to the station. Then you can pack them in my bag
+and betake yourselves to the ‘Emperor’. In the meantime, I’ll look up my
+friend, Schmid, and borrow a suitcase with which to inspire confidence.
+In half an hour I’ll come to the hotel, go to the dining-room, and be
+insanely astonished to find you there. Agreed?”
+
+“Splendid!” Gwen was again dancing for joy.
+
+“Stop! Stop! Stop! No pirouettes and toe-dancing, if you please! I
+beseech you, Miss Myra, watch out for the child, she’s going to queer us
+in the hotel and all over town. I don’t know whether I dare leave you
+alone with her for half an hour.”
+
+“It is only your presence that makes her so exuberant,” Myra assured
+him. “When she is alone with me, she is perfectly rational.”
+
+“Indeed!” There was an odd twitch at the corners of Fred’s lips, his
+short sharp glance flew from Myra’s face to Gwen’s.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The early twilight had already fallen. Gwen drew the yellow curtains
+over the windows and turned on all the electric lights—the chandelier,
+the lamp on the night-table, the bulb over the wash-basin and the
+commode—so that the big hotel room was bathed in light.
+
+“That’s how I like it.” She drew herself up like a purring kitten. “I
+must have light and warmth.” She tried the register under the window, a
+scorching heat poured out. “It’s beautiful! Like that! I detest a cold
+bedroom. At home the heat is always partially turned off because mamma
+thinks it’s unhealthy to sleep in a warm room. When I’m married, my
+bedroom will have to be as hot as a hot-house, so that I can sleep
+without a night-gown or covers!”
+
+She opened Fred’s bag and took out their small purchases. When that was
+done, she rummaged on.
+
+“Just see all the things he has in here! Wonderful soap, smell it, Myra!
+We’ll just keep it here. And a mouth-wash too. Shaving cream—we don’t
+need that. My God, how many brushes! Splendid, buckskin slippers. Not
+having any slippers with me is the most unpleasant part. I hate running
+around bare hotel floors in my bare feet. I must see what kind of
+pajamas he has. Violet and white. Very pretty. Do you want to wear
+pajamas? I think they’re very uncomfortable. But they’re very nice to
+take breakfast in in the morning. Do you know, I think they’re better
+looking on homely people than on pretty ones. Because you don’t see
+their necks and arms. But I’d like to wear them sometime just to see if
+they suit me, _bleu électrique_ perhaps. And you must have strawberry
+ones, not _fraise_, but strawberry-colored. Judging by the French-German
+color designations, the French really are color-blind. We call _fraise,
+fraise écrassée_, and are surprised that we’ve never seen
+_fraise_-colored strawberries! Have you never had a shop-girl tell you,
+‘We haven’t got that in blue, only in _bleu_’? Oh, the world is too
+idiotic. I have such a craving for some good alcohol. What drink do you
+like best? Do you want the right hand bed or the left? I suppose I’ll
+have to do up my hair again. Shall I wear the cap? It’s probably the
+most ladylike-looking. Are you ready? Shall we go down? How is it that
+your hair is always faultless? It isn’t so much shorter than mine. Do I
+look presentable? From the rear, from the front, from all sides? All
+right, then give me a kiss and come.”
+
+Gwen turned again on the stairs. She brandished the key of their room at
+Myra before dropping it into her purse.
+
+“The key! I took it out of the lock. They mustn’t find a gentleman’s bag
+with shaving materials and pajamas in our room. Fred must take it away
+as soon as he comes.”
+
+Myra was a little frightened at the big bright dining-room. She had
+completely forgotten how to look for a table, how to treat waiters, how
+to run over a wine-card. It was like an examination. And the worst of it
+was, that she could not defer the answer to these questions with a
+“We’re expecting someone.”
+
+As they entered, her first glance rested on a mirror, and in that mirror
+she saw Fred’s face. He was glancing up over the paper, which he held in
+both hands. His eyes, which were big and candid and of a deep luminous
+blue, looked a greeting at her. From his glance, from his firm bright
+face issued a current of repose and security.
+
+How good that he was here! How good that he was here!
+
+Presently she saw his broad shoulders and fair head in front of the
+mirror.
+
+Gwen began to giggle and nudge Myra. She made a motion as if she
+intended to rush over and frighten him by a slap on the shoulder. But
+Myra held her arm tightly.
+
+“He has seen us,” she said softly, “just walk past as if you didn’t
+notice him.”
+
+Myra heard his chair scrape behind them and his quick, long stride.
+
+They greeted one another with complete astonishment. Fred looked for a
+larger table—he had purposely seated himself at a small one—and ordered
+the waiter to bring over his things.
+
+Carefully he selected a small supper and a good wine.
+
+“Afterwards, we will have champagne,” he said when the waiter was out of
+ear-shot. “Of course,” with a hunch of his shoulders, “I will happen on
+the idea when he’s here. ‘Really, my dear ladies, we must celebrate this
+meeting with champagne!’ Doesn’t that sound quite credible?”
+
+“Very,” Myra agreed with a laugh.
+
+“Good heavens, the bag!” Gwen put her hand to her open mouth in terror,
+glancing from one to the other with her big frightened child’s eyes.
+“Fred, you must take your bag out of our room! What will the maid think
+of us? But don’t get caught, or they’ll have you arrested as a thief!
+That would be a wonderful joke. Watch, I’ll give you the key without
+anyone’s noticing.”
+
+She rummaged in her purse, which she held under the table on her lap,
+drew out the key, squeezing it tight in her effort to hide it in her
+little hand, and thrust her clenched fist under the table.
+
+Fred took the key from her, and slipping it into his trousers pocket,
+leaned back laughing in his chair.
+
+“Wonderful!” he said, showing his firm white teeth, “now the whole room
+has seen you pass me the key without anyone’s noticing you! Well, I
+don’t mind. I don’t feel that I’m compromised any further. You look
+pretty enough!”
+
+He said it rather disdainfully, with a mocking twitch at the corner of
+his mouth. But his lowered eyes ran over Gwen with a glance in which
+there was something intimately appraising, and at the same time, burning
+and absorbing.
+
+“What am I doing here?” thought Myra with a sudden pang. “Why must I be
+the witness of their affection? Simply because they want to guard their
+reputation? Ridiculous. They have certainly been alone together a
+hundred times before. They can’t be afraid that something will happen
+that has never happened yet. These two people know one another
+completely and without reserves. I’ve been aware of it for months. How
+could I have forgotten it again? What am I doing here?”
+
+Fred filled his glass.
+
+“To good honest comradeship!” he said.
+
+“I’ll drink to that!” Myra raised her glass.
+
+Fred tried to meet her glance with serious, candid eyes. “You’re a born
+comrade,” he said sincerely. “Loyal, clever, reticent and daring. You
+know, we often visualize people in another age, with different lives, in
+other rôles, so to speak. When I visualize you, it is always a thousand
+years ago, in the days of the knights and minnesingers. Then I see you
+in an esquire’s costume, following your chosen loved one. There are such
+figures in the old songs and sagas, and even in my boyhood they always
+stirred my emotion and admiration. A heroic maiden, without personal
+ambition, but all for love, enduring all hardships, sharing all doughty
+deeds, chided and praised, but never receiving the wages of passion
+until some time in the tumult of battle she receives a blow or a thrust,
+and the knight himself carries his faithful esquire into the tent in his
+arms. Then as he peels off the boy’s doublet a woman’s body lies
+exposed.”
+
+“Don’t you think he has talent?” teased Gwen. “He should run more with
+poets. And what am I? Utter yourself, Mr. Wietinghoff, in what rôle do
+you prefer to visualize me?”
+
+“You are an unmistakable child of the twentieth century,” said Fred
+scornfully, “silly and precocious, spoiled and childish, fond of dress
+and arrogant....”
+
+Gwen stamped her feet on the floor and opened her mouth for an
+unmannerly outcry, but Fred hastened to pacify her.
+
+“But sweet,” he said hastily, “quite charming into the bargain,
+irresistible, enthralling, entrancing, enchanting!”
+
+“It seems so,” laughed Gwen. “How did I ever enchant you that you’re so
+frightfully silly? Drink, children, I find the wine glorious and life a
+wonderfully beautiful affair.”
+
+Myra drank to her. The wine made her nerves tingle warmly.
+
+“Comrade,” she thought, “a beautiful, a dear word. Comrade! I would like
+to be that, and I can be. Comradeship. That is my strength. But nobody
+has ever required it of me yet. I can be a comrade to this little girl
+and a comrade to this man. Whether they have other relations with one
+another or not, makes no difference to me, doesn’t affect me. Strange,
+nobody has ever yet wanted me for a comrade, not even Olga. And yet I
+feel as if a key to my inner nature has been given me in those words. I
+feel as if I could see into and recognize what is within me. I will
+always be grateful to Fred for giving me that clue.”
+
+They all remained in a good mood. Sometimes Gwen laughed so wantonly
+that Fred or Myra had to quiet her. Sometimes there was a humorous
+allusion which Myra did not understand. But she was no longer hurt by
+it. A good comrade must be trusting and patient in all matters. Must be
+able to overhear what he does not understand. And must be forever alert,
+must listen with ears peeled for a cry of need addressed to him.
+
+At the entrance to their room Fred said good night. He lingered over
+both their hands as he kissed them, though not a fraction of a second
+longer over one than over the other. But he carried Gwen’s fingers to
+his lips and gazed piercingly into her eyes. He bowed his head low over
+Myra’s hand.
+
+“Tomorrow we’ll go to the sea!” Gwen danced exuberantly across the room.
+“Myra, sweet Myra, isn’t life beautiful? And isn’t it marvellous to go
+on a spree with Fred? Aren’t you fascinated by him? Well, something like
+that, you don’t have to be afraid of telling me, I’m not jealous! Only I
+won’t let myself be put out of business.... But otherwise.... You are a
+little in love with him, you don’t have to be afraid to tell me.”
+
+“I think you’re rather tipsy, little mouse,” said Myra, smiling. “It’s
+high time that you crept into your bed.”
+
+“Yes, high time—high time,” Gwen hummed softly. She undressed while she
+danced around the room, strewing her things on tables and chairs. “But
+I’m not tired. Are you tired, Myra? I hope not.”
+
+“Why not? What have you got up your sleeve?”
+
+“Oh, I’m going to the ball with you tonight, to the ‘feather ball.’
+Didn’t you use to say that when you were a child? It’s silly, isn’t it?
+All children have the same stupid expressions and always think they’re
+wonderfully witty, and can repeat them a thousand times over. But when
+you grow older you don’t want to hear the best joke or eat the most
+beautiful dish twice. Really sad, isn’t it? Or as Fred would say, ‘The
+eternal hunger for what is new drives us on.’ Otherwise we’d swing
+around in a circle like horses on a merry-go-round. Therefore, long live
+the urge to change! What’s taking you so everlastingly long, Myra? I’m
+getting into bed already.”
+
+But she did not get into bed at once. She ran about the room in her
+undershirt, putting this and that in order and looking for something
+here, and wasted time chattering and loitering.
+
+Myra was already in bed. “You’ll catch cold,” she said, shaking her
+head. “How can you dawdle around that way? You were ready a half hour
+ago. Turn out the unnecessary lights and creep into bed.”
+
+Gwen stretched her bare arms over her head.
+
+“I am so restless,” she complained, “can’t you understand. Ah, Myra, you
+always act as if you were made of ice and snow. Really don’t you feel
+the wine going through your veins and thudding up against your heart,
+again and again.” She struck her breast regularly with her clenched
+fist. “And can’t you feel that it’s spring outside? Have you no longer
+any roots in the earth so that you can’t feel how the sap is fermenting
+in you—in you, as in every tree and bush.”
+
+She stopped beside the bureau and laid her arms and her forehead against
+the smooth wood.
+
+“Sometimes I think that a poor mistreated, sawed up, polished piece of a
+tree like this still has a spark of life in it. And in spring, when the
+great orgy is preparing, it begins to feel a pulse and twitching in its
+poor polished wood. Feel it, there’s a throb like the soft beating of a
+heart in it. Then I think that the furniture is pleased with me. It
+feels my life frothing over, and that fulfills its desire and gives it
+rest, Myra!” With a bound she was on the edge of the bed, and was
+shaking Myra by the shoulders. “Are you more lifeless than that dead
+wood? It isn’t true and I don’t believe you are like that!”
+
+She threw her arms around Myra, burrowing with her head among the
+pillows.
+
+“Why don’t you like me, Myra?” she whispered in her ear. “Tell me, is it
+because you are in love with Fred? It isn’t true that you’ve never been
+in love with a woman. And it isn’t true that you could not love me....”
+
+“Love?” said Myra in a toneless voice. “What do you call love?”
+
+“I call love making someone happy—and making myself happy by doing so. I
+call everything else friendship or idolizing or infatuation, infatuation
+at most. I want to know what you have against me!”
+
+She knelt on the edge of the bed, tearing the night-gown from her
+shoulders like a mad woman.
+
+“You must look at me! You must look at me! Where have I any defect that
+could repel you?”
+
+“You are very beautiful,” said Myra with a painful smile.
+
+“Oh, but you are more!” Gwen threw herself upon Myra, and kissed her
+mouth and eyelids, her neck and cheeks.
+
+“I don’t want her,” thought Myra. “She has opened her heart to me and I
+have not urged her on. I am his comrade, I am his comrade....”
+
+Rosy red waves surged up. They swept from her heart, over her throat up
+to her eyes. The room seemed to reel, as if the walls were struggling
+for breath, as if their heart were palpitating by fits and starts.
+
+Suddenly everything went still and bright. Like a dazzling light, like
+the blare of a trumpet.
+
+Perhaps a board had creaked in the floor very softly.
+
+Myra started up, alert, sober.
+
+Something was in the room that had not been there before.
+
+A violet blotch. And topping it, Fred’s face.
+
+Fred’s eyes. Burning. Greedy. Completely unveiled like the eyes of
+rutting animals. Perfectly naked eyes.
+
+Myra did not cry out.
+
+She threw off the soft body that lay choking her.
+
+A catch-phrase flashed through her mind which she could not forget
+again. It was the only thing she could think of, and her mind kept
+repeating it over and over.
+
+“A put up job. All a put up job!”
+
+She sat up and reached for her clothes.
+
+At that moment Fred sprang at her.
+
+“Myra,” he stammered, “my sweetest one!”
+
+She slapped his face with the palm of her hand.
+
+He had been prepared for resistance, for kicking, scratching and
+biting—he would have vanquished her laughingly. But the blow made him
+stagger back.
+
+Myra slipped into her clothes.
+
+“A put up job,” she thought, “a put up job!”
+
+Her hands did not shake in spite of her frantic haste. Not until she was
+dressed did she cast a quick glance at Fred.
+
+The mark of her hand on his pale face burned like a fiery brand. The
+wide lids were quivering over his eyes.
+
+A strange feeling took possession of Myra. A furious joy, “I caught him
+a good one.” And then a dawning realization, “This is the first time
+that I have ever touched that handsome face—that handsome face.”
+
+She had never formulated it before in thought, it was as if her hands
+had always longed to stroke that face.
+
+An unutterable sorrow filled her heart. As if she had possessed
+something beautiful and precious and was first aware of it when it lay
+ruthlessly shattered and broken at her feet.
+
+She walked quietly to and fro in the room, collecting her things. When
+she had to pass Fred she walked around him. He did not look at her, but
+he felt it and shuddered.
+
+Gwen had crept out of her bed. She sat pink and naked on the big feather
+comforter. She had hunched up her shoulders and was playing rather
+embarrassedly with her toes.
+
+The door to the adjoining room stood open. It was the door through which
+Fred had entered.
+
+“A put up job,” thought Myra, “a put up job!”
+
+She went with her hat and coat on to that door. With her hand on the
+latch, she stopped.
+
+“I am going into the next room,” she said quietly. “I have no desire to
+leave the hotel in the middle of the night. I will go at seven and leave
+the door into the hall open.”
+
+Fred turned.
+
+“Miss Rudloff,” he said hoarsely, “Miss Rudloff!”
+
+His two dark eyes in his pale face were like two open wounds.
+
+Myra closed the door behind her and threw the bolt with a creak.
+
+She did not turn on the light.
+
+She knew, she sensed—there were things everywhere, strange things, his
+things.
+
+After quite a long while she heard voices from the adjoining room, high
+and low, muffled and suppressed, but audible.
+
+“Dear God, what won’t I have to hear,” she thought. “Dear God, give me
+strength, give me strength. Let me die, if you can, but don’t let me go
+insane, so that I will do something—something perfectly terrible....”
+
+But the worst thing was the odor in the room. The smell of cigarettes,
+the delicate scent of Russian leather, of soap, of vinegar.
+
+Myra threw the window wide open and moved a chair up to it. The night
+was cold. Myra trembled no matter how snugly she wrapped herself in her
+coat.
+
+She thought of the city which she would leave. Where would she go
+now—whither?
+
+Should she let herself be driven on, homeless, restless, the quarry of
+passionate desire?
+
+Or die?
+
+Yes, if she could but have believed in sleep.
+
+But stronger at this moment than ever before she felt undeniably,
+inviolably, that there was in her something indestructible.
+
+She was quite humble before that which she felt within her, with the
+humility of a mother who feels a strange life stir in her womb.
+
+“My poor soul,” she said softly, “what have I done to you? Why have I
+never thought of taking care of and helping you? Why did I always want
+to set you wandering in the cold space between the stars? Poor soul, why
+do I have you, if you merely suffer on my account and I on yours?
+Sometime I shall know, sometime I shall learn all. I would not like to
+die, no, I would not like to die before I know why I have lived.”
+
+The memory of Eccarius crossed her mind—“No one ought to die before he
+has learned to love death.”
+
+“No, I do not love death. I do not fear him, but I do not love him. I
+will learn to love him. I will live in order to learn to love death.
+Perhaps that is why we have to live. And perhaps that is why we have to
+suffer.”
+
+The voices in the next room hushed. The strange familiar odor had
+disappeared from the room.
+
+In the sky the stars were paling before the first feeble light of a
+dawning March morning.
+
+
+                                THE END
+
+
+
+
+                          Transcriber’s Notes
+
+
+This text was transcribed from the unchanged reprint edition in the
+collection _HOMOSEXUALITY. Lesbians and Gay Men in Society, History and
+Literature_, Arno Press: New York, 1975. Materials from a later date
+than the original publication year 1948, such as series title, editorial
+information, or publisher advertisements, have been omitted.
+
+The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical
+and punctuation errors were silently amended. All other changes are
+shown here (before/after):
+
+   [p. 62]:
+   ... held the little flame for her asked in a casual tone, “You
+       are a ...
+   ... held the little flame for her he asked in a casual tone,
+       “You are a ...
+
+   [p. 84]:
+   ... up on the cushion of a chair and lit the gas-jet. I was
+       evidently ...
+   ... up on the cushion of a chair and lit the gas-jet. It was
+       evidently ...
+
+   [p. 231]:
+   ... is, if Gisela with allow me.” ...
+   ... is, if Gisela will allow me.” ...
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77582 ***
diff --git a/77582-h/77582-h.htm b/77582-h/77582-h.htm
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+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html lang="en">
+<head>
+<meta charset="UTF-8">
+<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
+<title>The Scorpion | Project Gutenberg</title>
+   <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg"  type="image/x-cover">
+   <!-- TITLE="The Scorpion" -->
+   <!-- AUTHOR="Anna Elisabet Weirauch" -->
+   <!-- TRANSLATOR="Whittaker Chambers" -->
+   <!-- LANGUAGE="en" -->
+   <!-- PUBLISHER="Willey Book Company, New York" -->
+   <!-- DATE="1948" -->
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+
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77582 ***</div>
+
+<div class="frontmatter chapter">
+<p class="halftitle">
+THE SCORPION
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="frontmatter chapter">
+<p class="aut">
+BY ANNA ELISABET WEIRAUCH
+</p>
+
+<h1 class="title">
+The Scorpion
+</h1>
+
+<p class="trans">
+<span class="line1">Translated from the</span><br>
+<span class="line2">German by</span><br>
+<span class="line3">WHITTAKER CHAMBERS</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="pub">
+<span class="line1">WILLEY BOOK COMPANY</span><br>
+<span class="line2">New York</span>
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="frontmatter chapter">
+<p class="cop">
+Copyright, 1932, by Greenberg: Publisher, Inc.<br>
+Revised Edition<br>
+Copyright, 1948, by Willey Book Company
+</p>
+
+<p class="printer">
+Printed in the United States of America
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-1">
+<a id="page-1" class="pagenum" title="1"></a>
+I
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Frankly, I desired to make Myra’s acquaintance because of
+her evil reputation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was from Aunt Antonia that I first heard of her. Aunt
+Antonia was a very pious and respectable lady, and lies and
+slander were alien to her. She saw things with a sharp eye, but
+saw them from a set viewpoint.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+According to her tale, Myra had even as a child exhibited
+a peculiar propensity to lying and stealing. In school she was
+considered stupid and lazy. As a young girl, she had run
+around with a remarkable woman, a fashionably dressed
+sharper, with a decidedly masculine manner. Misled, perhaps,
+by this friend, she had stolen her father’s silver service and
+pawned it. After a fit of downright insanity during which she
+tried to strangle her aunt, who had been the motherless child’s
+faithful guardian, she was dispatched to her Uncle George in
+a small town. There she stole everything not nailed down,
+very skillfully forced her uncle’s desk and, appropriating a
+large sum of money, fled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her father, a mental man of a most sensitive nature, did
+not long survive this news: he died of a stroke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra’s mother had died in giving her life. “Luckily,” as
+Uncle George was wont to say bitterly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Myra did not share his opinion. She had a fantastic
+notion of what a mother is, and believed that her own mother’s
+premature death was the cause of all the misfortunes in her
+life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For my part, I cannot say which view is correct. Certain it
+is, that Myra’s childhood would not have been as dismal and
+<a id="page-2" class="pagenum" title="2"></a>
+joyless as under Aunt Emily’s bony fingers; at the same time,
+even the gentlest of mothers’ hands could not have saved her
+from the bitterest struggles of her life. And when I recall the
+latter, I understand Uncle George’s “luckily” quite well.
+Doubtless he had a clearer picture of his sister than Myra
+could possibly have had.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Little Myra was not to go to school; her father, Franz Rudloff
+himself ordered it so. He had an almost morbid fear of
+anything that suggested “the common people.” It seemed to
+him as if his cool, high-ceilinged home would be contaminated
+with the exhalations of poorly ventilated class-rooms, as if
+his quiet walls would re-echo to hundreds of shrill voices, to
+hundreds of trampling feet, were he to send his daughter to
+school.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So a governess came to the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aunt Emily was in secret opposition from the first. She
+had gone to school, and school had not harmed her in any
+way. Quite the contrary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was absolutely opposed to the idea that anybody in this
+world should have anything better than she had or had had.
+One of the few pleasures she permitted herself in life was that
+of “impartial justice,” as she called it. That is to say, if anyone
+is getting along undeservedly well, he must be made to suffer
+for his unmerited good fortune by some heavy blow of fate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Other people have another name for this type of pleasure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aunt Emily was “against” the teacher. But Aunt Emily was
+much too much of a model to object when the master of the
+house expressed a desire. She knew that in such cases she must
+submit in silence. Not that poor Franz would ever have <em>demanded</em>
+it of her. Oh dear no! But it was the proper thing to
+do. So she pinched the corners of her mouth a little tighter
+and submitted in silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The teacher had such wavy, wayward hair that the brown
+<a id="page-3" class="pagenum" title="3"></a>
+curls refused to be laid flat and were always fluttering about
+her face. Moreover, she had the disposition which, according
+to the proverb, goes with such hair. All the men who had
+played a brief or a lengthy rôle in her life declared she would
+have made a ravishing lover. She was somewhat less qualified
+to educate a little girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aunt Emily had not chosen her. That had been quite definitely
+Franz Rudloff’s and Myra’s concern. One thing father
+and daughter had in common—all their senses thirsted for
+beauty and harmony. They put a premium on externals, as
+Aunt Emily expressed it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The governess, the “young lady,” had such a charming,
+girlish face, such gentle gestures and such a beautiful, vibrant
+voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it was no sense of personal interest that attracted Franz
+Rudloff to the “young lady.” It was simply that if he must take
+a stranger into his house, he preferred that she be an agreeable
+creature. Perhaps he was, to a degree unsuspected by himself,
+heartily sick of a disagreeable one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra’s case was different. She had never in all her life seen
+any human soul that so appealed to her. All her eager child’s
+heart, which neither love nor tenderness had ever filled, went
+out toward this stranger, this stranger who took her into her
+arms, who brushed the hair from her forehead with her gentle
+hands while her voice caressingly called her “darling” and
+“pet.” The prospect of having this person always near her was
+an inconceivable, a delirious joy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She did not beg her father. Myra Rudloff never could beg,
+not even if it were a question of her life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But when her father asked her if the “young lady” should
+come, she said, “Yes.” And the “young lady” came. But Aunt
+Emily pinched the corners of her mouth tighter and submitted
+in silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-4" class="pagenum" title="4"></a>
+In the next three or four years, while the “young lady” remained
+in the house, Myra experienced all the tortures of unhappy
+love.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the first few months everything went splendidly. That
+is the most unhappy part of an unhappy love—it always begins
+with an extravagant happiness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The “young lady” was very fond indeed of Myra, and Myra
+was very fond indeed of the “young lady,” and they studied
+together and played together and went for walks together. It
+was a glorious time. But like all glorious times, of brief duration.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Surely some fiend suddenly cast the former lieutenant of
+hussars, von Hanston, in their path, that very lieutenant of
+hussars whom the “young lady” had loved ardently from the
+time when she was not a young lady at all, but was called
+Frieda Ellert and went to the seminary and danced at her first
+balls in the city where she was born.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This former lieutenant of hussars had no very clean record
+behind him. He had had to leave the service on account of
+debts, and had since tried his hand at a little of everything.
+He referred to his present occupation only in very ambiguous,
+albeit in very high-sounding, terms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But that in no sense prevented the flame from kindling
+again in the “young lady’s” bosom, or Myra, “sweet little Myra,
+who was as good as gold,” from being a nuisance who was
+continually in the way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At first, Myra was simply cross when her “brother” paid the
+“young lady” a visit and the child was sent to her bedroom,
+because the “young lady” could not receive a gentleman in a
+room where there was a bed. Later they changed all that.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was enough to make anybody cross. And if the visits had
+continued and Myra had continued to be shut out, and if that
+cold, unfriendly tone which was habitual with the “young
+lady” these days, had continued, too, Myra’s burning love
+<a id="page-5" class="pagenum" title="5"></a>
+might have changed very quickly to hate—and all would have
+been well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the devil alone knows, that same devil who had washed
+up von Hanston on Victoria Louisa Square one morning, what
+von Hanston had up his sleeve. Some private worries, no doubt,
+or debts or another little love affair—at any rate, the “young
+lady” presently began to feel aggrieved, and to mope and to
+weep all night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That was too much for Myra.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra Rudloff did not cry easily. She did not believe that a
+human being could cry unless he were suffering the extremes
+of agonized despair. Therefore, she would have torn her heart
+out of her breast to comfort anyone who was crying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So when Frieda wept for her lieutenant of hussars, Myra
+suffered all the torments of Hell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At first, since the “young lady” did not want to wake the
+child, she wept softly; in fact, wept herself to sleep in a quarter
+of an hour. But when she observed that Myra woke up, or perhaps
+did not dare go to sleep, and made an effort to remain
+awake, listening to every breath, then she felt quite free to
+give vent to her grief and let herself be comforted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the sound of the first sobs, Myra would jump out of her
+little bed and run in her bare feet across the bare floor. Then
+she would crouch at the “young lady’s” bedside and weep
+and shiver, and comfort her with her sweet, delicate child’s
+voice, and her gentle and good child’s hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the “young lady” permitted herself to be caressed and
+comforted while she braced her feet against the foot of the
+bed, bent back her head, tore the pillows with her nails and
+cried, “The dog! The scoundrel! I can’t stand it any longer!
+I’ll die! He’s killing me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the time that these scenes took place, Myra had already
+known for some while that these outbursts referred to the
+“brother,” and that this “brother” was no brother at all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-6" class="pagenum" title="6"></a>
+She felt such a furious torment of hatred against the man
+that she often pondered with fierce intensity how she could
+manage to do away with him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These “nights of memories and of sighs” were bad. But they
+were by no means the worst. The worst was that the gentleman
+would appear again the next day and be received between
+laughter and tears, with open reproaches and hardly dissembled
+tenderness, and Myra would be sent to her room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Myra would grind her teeth and dig her nails into her
+palms, and give way to the most torturing rage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was capable of much rudeness on these occasions. It
+was not her way to show sorrow when she was suffering. She
+preferred to be rude. Hence it is quite understandable that
+there were times when the “young lady” was furiously angry
+at her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Had Myra been able to tell how she felt inside, she would
+have wept and said, “I love you and I am jealous. Doubly jealous
+because your love is bestowed on a man who torments
+you and whom you pretend to despise. I suffer because I have
+to love a creature who has so little pride and character.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra went into the room, <em>her</em> room that she was not permitted
+to enter while that hated “scoundrel” was sitting there.
+She entered without knocking, she carried her head very high
+and set her tiny foot down very firmly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She laid her books and notebooks on the table, opened the
+ink-well with a bang and pretended to be looking at the clock.
+She really was, but she was still so small that she had some
+difficulty in telling the time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have a lesson,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That scoundrel” sneered contemptuously and excused himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How dare she do such a thing?” the “young lady” hissed
+at her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-7" class="pagenum" title="7"></a>
+Myra strove to think of some hateful reply, and she succeeded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My father doesn’t pay you simply to keep that ‘scoundrel’
+sitting here all the time!” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The “young lady” would have liked to strike her. But she
+shrank from the menacing gravity of the child’s pale face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Never had anybody dared strike Myra Rudloff, although
+many may have felt the temptation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The “young lady” caught her by the arm and shook her.
+She gripped the child so tightly that the pressure of her fingers
+was visible several days afterward as five blue marks on the
+tender skin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If Myra had blue marks on her arm once, she had them a
+hundred times, or welts on her shoulders, or scratches on her
+hands. Had she wanted to complain, help was assured. If she
+had just once showed Aunt Emily the traces of one such scene,
+instead of anxiously hiding them, “that person” would have
+gone for good. Myra knew this but did not want to do it.
+Hence she had to fight her battle through single-handed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Frieda perceived that the child was superior to her,
+she changed her tactics. Myra must no longer be treated as
+an enemy, she must be made a confidante. Everything must
+be poured forth to Myra’s silent, little heart, all the joys and
+sorrows of this affair, and a whole mass of rubbish, besides.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra had to stand watch, Myra had to convey letters and
+carry on telephone conversations, and Myra was showered
+with kisses and caresses. Another child might have been quite
+happy in this state of affairs. Myra continued to suffer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The difficulty probably lay in the fact that she detested the
+man so much. If it had been someone she liked, she might
+have accommodated herself more readily to the situation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes, when the “young lady” was in a mood to belabor
+her heart’s dearest, she would take the child on her knee and
+<a id="page-8" class="pagenum" title="8"></a>
+swear to leave that terrible man. Then amidst tears and oaths
+everything would be promised.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, my darling, yes, my angel, he shall never cross that
+threshold again, the dirty dog! I have you, my pet, my comfort,
+I will live for you alone!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For Myra these were moments of an agonized bliss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But they were only moments, for all that, for when the telephone
+rang, or when a letter came, or when they met the gentleman
+“accidentally” in the public gardens, everything was
+forgotten again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra comprehended that here was something against which
+she could do nothing. She comprehended darkly that she had
+no right to demand a human being entirely for herself, because
+she was a child. And she burned with a desire to grow up
+quickly, quickly, in order to possess what she loved, wholly
+and solely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then came that strange business with the silverware.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One night the “young lady” gave Myra the keys to the silver
+closet and a shallow leather-covered case. Myra was to return
+the case to the closet. The “young lady” had borrowed it secretly
+because her bridegroom wanted to see the pretty silver.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra wanted to see, too. She teased so long that the “young
+lady” opened the case. There were the thick, shiny spoons,
+row on row, each in its groove in the dark blue velvet. Not one
+was missing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt an irresistible pleasure in stealing down the long
+hall, as silently as a cat, groping her way in the dining-room
+without turning on the lights, cautiously unlocking the closet
+without the key’s grinding or the door’s creaking, laying the
+case in its place and looking up again. Then she had to suppress
+her joy with an effort as she flew into the “young lady’s”
+arms and let herself be praised.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This first attempt was only an introduction. With astonishment
+and admiration Myra discovered the workings of the
+<a id="page-9" class="pagenum" title="9"></a>
+pawn system. It was quite miraculous—all one needed to do
+was lend silver or jewelry in order to receive a whole heap of
+money. And in a short time you received your things back
+again unharmed. Indeed, they were not even used during that
+time, as the “young lady” replied assuringly to Myra’s questions,
+with a laugh. It was a wonderful arrangement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was so lovely to lie in bed at night and chatter and nibble
+candy. But candy was so terribly dear. Therefore, from time
+to time, the silver was “lent.” It did the silver no harm, and
+the secrecy with which it had to be taken and returned was a
+real lark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But once the big case was sent away and did not come back
+again. It was gone so everlastingly long that nobody gave a
+thought to it any longer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then it occurred to Aunt Emily during house-cleaning one
+day to have all the silver counted over and cleaned. Aunt Emily
+knew to a fork-tine just how much silver was in the household.
+But Aunt Emily was much too much of a model to depend
+upon her memory in matters so tremendous. On the
+inside of each door in the sideboard was tacked a little slip
+of rice-paper on which was written in Aunt Emily’s eminently
+distinct and legible hand:
+</p>
+
+<div class="list-container">
+  <div class="list">
+<p class="center">
+Contents
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+A leather case with 12 soup spoons, monogram L. R.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A wooden case with 12 dessert spoons, monogram G. v. S.
+</p>
+
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+With the help of these lists she established beyond a doubt
+that one case was missing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was not even frightened when she heard Aunt Emily’s
+shrill, excited voice and the weeping of the affronted maid.
+She was simply happy to be able to straighten out the situation.
+Thank heaven! Else poor Bertha would very likely have
+been suspected of stealing! Myra entered the room and said
+<a id="page-10" class="pagenum" title="10"></a>
+quite coolly and somewhat proudly, “You don’t need to be
+upset, Aunt. The silver is safe. I pawned it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As a result of the next few days’ events, it gradually dawned
+on Myra that she had done something which, in the opinion
+of the others, she was not justified in doing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The house-maid told everybody who would listen to her
+that honest people were accused of stealing in her house because
+the “little brat” had “snitched” the silver and taken it
+to the pawnbroker.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fat old cook wept and wrung her hands in lamentation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aunt Emily went about as if horror had turned her to stone.
+Tears came to the eyes of Myra’s father whenever he looked
+at his unhappy child. A children’s specialist even appeared on
+the scene, bearing the fearful and uncanny title of “psychiatrist,”
+and subjected Myra to a long examination.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the “young lady” stormed and wept and screamed at
+her, calling her an “idiot” and an “imbecile,” and kicked and
+scratched her, then fell on her knees before her, declaring
+she was a “little saint,” and imploring her “to keep quiet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra “kept quiet.” But as she did not know what it was she
+should keep quiet about, she kept quiet about everything.
+She let them question her gently or angrily, during inquisitions
+that lasted for hours. She let them shake her, beseech
+her, let them lock her in her room—she would not talk. Her
+silence became a wall about her. She could no longer have
+broken it, had she wished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the “young lady” had to leave anyway. Whether she was
+an accessory or innocent, it was clear that no child could be so
+abandoned if its education were in good hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The “young lady” left. And Myra suffered all the mortal
+pangs of separation and loneliness.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-2">
+<a id="page-11" class="pagenum" title="11"></a>
+II
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Myra was sent to school.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But since they had deprived her of her “young lady,” she
+avenged herself by refusing to learn anything.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was more than a year before her defiance gradually wore
+down. Then it was too late to make up what she had lost. Nor
+did she want to. She did not make the slightest effort to catch
+up. But neither was it any longer worthwhile to resist. She
+did what was demanded of her because it was less troublesome
+to learn the bare rudiments than to be always listening
+to long scoldings and admonitory harangues.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She grew incredibly fast at this period and was always tired.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+When she finished school, she stayed at home for a few
+years and bored herself. She took the usual piano lessons and
+practised the prescribed number of hours. But she had no inborn
+musical talent, though she did have an exaggerated sensitiveness,
+so that she suffered from the shortcomings of her
+own playing, without the ability, or even the determination,
+to make up her deficiencies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During these years her moods alternated like sun and showers
+in April. She longed to be dead, or to come of age, to be
+alive in another century, or some other part of the earth, to be
+a nun or so beautiful as to ravish the entire world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These were years barren of incident. So barren that Myra
+seldom recalled them, and if the conversation turned on
+anything that had happened during these years—a journey,
+a birth or a death among their acquaintances, or some public
+occurrence—she always had to think for a long time when
+<a id="page-12" class="pagenum" title="12"></a>
+it could have happened and how old she had been. On the
+other hand, she possessed an amazing memory for the period
+when people and things began to glide swiftly past her because
+she connected them with those days that stood like memorials
+in her mind—before or after Olga’s death, when she
+was together with Olga or separated from her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moment when her life really began—with hundreds
+of roaring voices, with a full, singing, swinging motif that
+was never again to be mute, but would sound now in the major,
+now in the minor, now from all the violins and celli, now
+from a single complaining oboe, in a thousand intricacies, a
+thousand nuances, until the closing chord—that moment was
+when Olga Radó opened the door at Consul Moebius’, and
+walked into the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was nothing to be said, on the whole, against the
+Moebiuses. It was an acquaintance that Aunt Emily herself
+had cultivated. There were two daughters, Fannie and Emmie,
+both younger than Myra, both reddish blondes, very precise
+about their clothes and hair, and both so marvellously insignificant
+that after watching them for weeks, it was impossible
+to tell whether they really were pretty or homely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The degree of their relationship with Olga Radó is no longer
+possible to ascertain. When she first appeared and everybody
+was raving about her, it was always—“Our cousin.” Later
+every recollection of that relationship was completely effaced
+from the Moebius’ mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga herself had never made much use of this “relationship”
+with Consul Moebius, in good days or in bad. She would
+never have visited the house had she not been begged three
+separate times.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra, the Moebius girls and Erika Hanneman formed a
+little circle. They met once a week and did needlework or read
+French plays, taking different parts. It bored Myra to tears,
+<a id="page-13" class="pagenum" title="13"></a>
+she never listened when the others read and always managed
+to miss her cue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One such Wednesday afternoon in April, the four girls were
+again sitting on their white-lacquered chairs in the elegant
+young ladies’ room when the door opened, and Olga Radó entered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She must accidentally have left another door open behind,
+too, for with Olga a breath of air as fresh as a puff of wind
+swept through the room. The window, which was ajar, flew
+open, the white mull curtains blew out and fluttered, the
+pages of the books rustled, the flies buzzed up around the light,
+while some hand in the sky tore a tatter of cloud from the face
+of the sun: a dazzling brightness and a cool breeze filled the
+room to its darkest corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the door closed with a loud bang, the window creaked
+to, the curtains fell back into the room like sacks, and a new
+cloud blotted out the sun. But none of these things did Myra
+Rudloff perceive, for she could do nothing but gaze at Olga
+Radó, could not take her eyes or her mind from her—not for
+a long, long time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga was very tall and very slender. Her face was beautiful
+and boldly chiselled. Her smooth, rich, dark hair exposed
+much of her high and admirably modelled forehead. Her thin
+black brows drew together at the top of her nose, which gave
+her sharp, metallic-gray eyes an almost threatening expression.
+Her speech was crisp and hard. But her voice had a deep,
+soft, cello quality. It made a striking contrast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was something in her manner of dressing which
+pleased Myra without her being able to define it. One could
+not dispose of it with a word like “tasteful” or “elegant” or
+“smart.” Myra felt dimly—“That is how I should like to dress.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt her throat go dry and her heart throb wildly when
+her turn came to read. She had never been so nervous in school
+<a id="page-14" class="pagenum" title="14"></a>
+no matter how unprepared she had come. Every word seemed
+a snare to her. She would mispronounce everything and make
+a fool of herself, irrevocably. It was really a crime to know so
+little French. She would go to her father tomorrow and ask
+him to let her take French lessons. He would be overjoyed to
+have her come to him with such a request.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was relieved when she had stammered her few lines.
+Then came Erika’s turn, and then Fannie again, with all the
+pathos at her command.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they were all standing again, putting on their hats
+in front of the mirror, Myra noticed with an inexplicable joy
+that she was almost as tall as Olga Radó, much taller than the
+three fair, plump misses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a trio they descended the stairs and walked part of the
+way together. Erika Hanneman did most of the talking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From time to time, Olga Radó said, “Isn’t it?—No!—Indeed—Oh!—No?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was silent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last Erika Hanneman said good-bye and turned to the
+left.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga and Myra walked briskly side by side in silence for a
+while. Myra should long ago have turned off if she wanted to
+take the shortest way home. She observed with some concern
+that she kept right on going, but she was much too happy to
+stop now that Erika Hanneman had finally left them: the air
+seemed to have become purer and one could stride along more
+freely. It was a joy to keep up with this lovely, regular pace,
+and she comforted herself with the thought that nobody knew
+where she lived anyhow, and that she had just as much right
+on the street as anybody else.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra glanced at every house with a certain anxiety: was it
+at this one or the next that Olga Radó would stop with a hasty
+good-bye, and the heavy door close behind her, leaving the
+street barren and lonely?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-15" class="pagenum" title="15"></a>
+But at last they had reached a house in front of which Olga
+Radó suddenly halted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My home,” she said, “if you can call a boarding-house
+home. But after all, what can you call home? Are you familiar
+with the Pension Flesch?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know any boarding-houses.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Lucky girl! You live with your parents?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“With my father.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, the house is quite nice. I have lived in worse. Drop in
+once in a while and have a look at my cubbyhole!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d love to.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+That “love to” was no mere manner of speaking. For the
+next few days and nights Myra pondered how she should contrive
+to accept this invitation and visit Olga Radó.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once she actually started out. Then she returned because she
+thought it better to announce her call by telephone. But then
+again, it did not seem proper to disturb Olga by a telephone
+call. She would rather write. But that gave the matter such
+importance and formality, deprived it of all its chance, its accidental
+character. And then if she received a polite refusal,
+all possibility would be gone of making a further attempt. But
+if she simply went up and did not find Olga at home, she
+could leave her card with a few words—and wait for a reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went, went as far as the house, but again she did not go
+in. She walked up and down the street and stood for a long
+time, lost in thought, in front of a few utterly uninviting shopwindows.
+It might well happen that Olga Radó would leave
+the house at this time, or better yet, might be returning home
+and would ask Myra to come in with her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In addition, Myra cultivated her relations with the Moebius
+girls with a touching zeal. She invited them to her house as
+often as Aunt Emily permitted, she went to see them as often
+as she was asked. And she found occasion to phone them a
+<a id="page-16" class="pagenum" title="16"></a>
+hundred times in order to make various arrangements. She
+borrowed books that had to be fetched and returned, and
+withal made such lavish efforts to be amiable that the consul’s
+wife was quite charmed with her, and was never weary of impressing
+on Aunt Emily how much Myra was changing for
+the better. To which Aunt Emily commonly replied by a silent,
+all but offended shrug of her shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This went on for weeks. But Myra did not lose patience. It
+was enough for her to hear from time to time a remark let
+fall—“as Olga always says” or “Olga likes that so much.” It
+was enough, in fact almost too much, to hear Fannie say,
+“Olga was up for a moment last night, I thought she looked
+very bad!” Or to have Emmie, who at this time was conceiving
+something like a mild passion for Myra, observe, “Myra
+has such remarkably beautiful hands, almost as beautiful as
+Olga’s....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ah, it was even enough to hold the little black dog on her
+lap and laugh and call it “Sophonisba,” a pet name Olga had
+given it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this afforded hope and suspense for days. It was at this
+time, that Myra began to find life beautiful again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She did not know why.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-3">
+<a id="page-17" class="pagenum" title="17"></a>
+III
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+One evening—the girls were again sitting together in the
+twilight—because they could chat better that way than in the
+glaring lamp light, there came a shrill ring of the bell, and a
+few moments later those deep, vibrant tones that sent a thrill
+of terror into Myra’s very heart sounding from the next room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She knew that voice perfectly, but she was afraid she might
+be mistaken. She wanted to ask, “Isn’t that Olga?” but was
+afraid of receiving the answer “No.” And more than all else,
+she was afraid that that conversation in the next room might
+stop, that the door might open, and she would hear too late,
+“Olga just dropped in for a moment.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the voices did not stop. They grew louder, drew nearer,
+the door was thrown wide open of a sudden, and in the frame
+stood the tall apparition of Olga Radó, in bold relief against
+the yellow light flooding the next room, like a silhouette on a
+golden background.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you want to have tea with me tomorrow, children?” she
+called into the dark room. “Somebody has just sent me some
+Kugler’s confections.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Moebius girls shouted for joy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Emmie pushed forward a chair and wanted Olga to sit
+down, but she declined and did not take her hand from the
+door-knob.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no, children, I haven’t a moment’s time. But be there
+promptly tomorrow, at four, or half past at the latest, I have
+to go to the opera in the evening.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra did not move. When the door opened she had uttered
+<a id="page-18" class="pagenum" title="18"></a>
+a semi-audible “Good evening.” Now it seemed obtrusive to
+call attention to herself. Perhaps, Olga had not even seen her
+in her dark corner. Perhaps, too, she did not want to see her.
+It would have been understandable. But something hurt her at
+the thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Won’t you come, too, Miss Rudloff? If you have nothing
+better in the offing. You are heartily welcome.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I should love to,” said Myra, and went pale with pleasure.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Olga received her guests with what appeared to be cordial
+and genuine pleasure. It seemed inconceivable to Myra that
+this woman should not wrap herself in cold hauteur as in a
+coat of mail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girls could not restrain their amusement at the ingenious
+darkness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Olga, “I wanted to present my cubbyhole in the
+best light. And the best light is the least light possible.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was urged to sit in a deep easy-chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, you must make yourself at home with us. After all
+you are our guest of honor, you are the oldest! You are probably
+still proud of the fact, but when you are as old as I am,
+it ceases to be a compliment.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In all her life Myra had never felt as much at home as in the
+easy-chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In front of her, Olga was crouched on a low taboret. The
+inevitable cigarette was already between her fingers and she
+clamped it in her teeth whenever she needed her hands free
+to pour tea or pass the cake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When a lull occurred in the conversation, she brought out a
+box of photographs she had taken on various trips, or a book
+with Dulac illustrations, or a magazine with pictures of the
+latest screen stars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again Myra was conscious of a feeling of pain. It was all
+she could do to answer yes or no to the conversation. “She is
+<a id="page-19" class="pagenum" title="19"></a>
+making such a dreadful effort to entertain us,” she thought.
+“But in reality, we’re a bore and a burden to her. As soon as
+the door has closed behind us, she’ll draw a long breath and
+say, ‘Thank God!’ I can hardly blame her. But why did she
+ever invite us?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had the greatest desire to go, simply to free Olga Radó
+from this visitation. At the same time, she felt that if she tried
+to break away with some excuse or other, and they questioned
+her and pleaded with her, and all their attention was focussed
+on her, she would be unable to keep back the tears which were
+even now threatening and smarting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was almost glad, and yet deeply unhappy, when Olga
+suddenly glanced at her watch and said, “I’ll have to throw
+you out, children, sorry as it makes me. I have to dress quickly
+as possible—the time passed so dreadfully fast.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Myra spent a whole week in aimless promenades, practised
+the piano at home and studied French, and when she had
+practised and studied for half an hour, would throw herself
+on the divan and stare at the scrap of blue sky netted with
+silvery telephone wires which she could see from where she
+lay. Then her thoughts would fly hither and yon—how glorious
+it would be to understand all the languages in the world,
+or to master some instrument perfectly, or to have a wonderful
+voice, or to be ravishingly beautiful. But since one never could
+attain to any of those things, perhaps it would be pleasantest
+to be dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then there would come pressing duties which compelled
+her to go down Motz Street. And since one had to pass <em>the</em>
+house, it was natural that one should walk a little slower, gaze
+up at the windows and peer down the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And since one was in town and wanted to go home, one
+might just as well go down Motz as Kleist Street. And since
+one went out to get a little fresh air, it was the most natural
+<a id="page-20" class="pagenum" title="20"></a>
+thing in the world that one should sit down on a bench on
+Victoria Louisa Square and watch the children playing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every day Myra stood in front of a shop-window containing
+gloves, ribbons and laces, and stared in profound thought
+at the display—because at the back was a mirror, and in this
+mirror she could watch the door of the house opposite.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every time the door opened, Myra started.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once when Olga Radó emerged from that door, Myra
+scarcely recognized her. Olga wore a loose cloak, both hands
+were thrust in her pockets and she had no hat. She ran, rather
+than walked, two houses farther down to the mail-box, and
+dropped a letter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra hurried across the street to intercept her on her return.
+Her heart was throbbing so that she had to gasp for breath.
+With the extreme speed of thought she decided on a hundred
+different courses and instantly rejected them again. She would
+say something to Olga. She would pass her with a silent greeting.
+But suppose she were not recognized! She had better
+say something to her. But what?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While she was still crossing the street, Olga had seen her
+and waved her hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hello, Myra! Were you going to call on me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not exactly,” said Myra paling with excitement. Perhaps
+this was a further stupidity, perhaps she should have said yes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, exactly.” Olga hooked her hand in Myra’s arm. “Come
+up for an hour. Or shall you be neglecting something? No?
+Well, then, fine! Wait, I must see my friend at the corner and
+buy me some cigarettes. Will you come, too?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Never in all her life had Myra seen such a charming tobacco
+shop as this at the corner. Never had any individual pleased
+her so much at first sight as this white-haired, simpering little
+man, with the withered, trembling hands, from whom Olga
+Radó bought her cigarettes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga sat at the broad diplomat’s desk of black stained oak,
+<a id="page-21" class="pagenum" title="21"></a>
+her legs crossed in a Luther chair, leaning somewhat forward,
+both elbows resting on the high arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra sat facing her in the easy-chair. She felt a little strained
+as at an examination. Something went tense deep within her,
+so that she gritted her teeth and said to herself, “I will pass this
+test, I will pass it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a while all went well. They talked of the Moebius girls
+and of Erika Hanneman and Olga’s aunt, the consul’s wife.
+And Myra told about her life at home, about Aunt Emily
+and the beautiful days of her childhood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly Olga said, “Tell me frankly, how do you come to
+be friends with my so-called cousins?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know,” said Myra, “Aunt Emily....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t mean to say anything against them,” said Olga
+quickly, “they are as good as gold. But aren’t you bored to
+death in this perpetual round?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” Myra replied, “but I’m always bored, anyway.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, how dreadful!” said Olga really shocked. “I’d rather
+be dead than be bored. Don’t you really know anybody but
+Fannie and Emmie and Aunt Emily?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” Myra hesitated. “It’s probably my own fault. I’ve never
+had a friend. But then I’ve never wanted one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is not so easy,” Olga reflected. “Usually we miss our best
+friends by a century or two. We know some by reading about
+them or seeing their pictures. But that is all, of those who
+will be born after us, we know nothing. That is why I so envy
+people who create. They can greet those who come after us.
+They can keep themselves alive in pictures, words or deeds.
+Yes, in deeds, too. It is like a cry. Thus I am, thus I was, love
+me! And if in their own lifetimes they have never found anyone—perhaps
+in a hundred years, or maybe two hundred,
+somebody will be born who will love them as they desired
+to be loved. Who will understand them as they desired to be
+understood. We poor creatures—once we’re dead, we most
+<a id="page-22" class="pagenum" title="22"></a>
+certainly will never be loved again. Not for as long as ten
+years after, ah, not even for ten months. Sometimes I would
+like....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her eyes were very dark and menacing under her furrowed
+brows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She broke off and began again in another one. “Do you
+know, there are a great many very congenial people of the
+Renaissance. We should have lived four or five centuries
+sooner. I should certainly have been friends with Margherita
+Sforza. I have just read a wonderful story about how she held
+her brother’s possessions when Julius Caesar was sent against
+them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt a tempest in her brain which was not unlike vertigo.
+Renaissance—that was a familiar idea. Her mind made
+some kind of hazy connection with the name Sforza.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But—“Julius Caesar,” she muttered to herself, disconcerted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga laughed. “No, no, not the great one! Julius Caesar of
+Capua. Some stupid, little princeling or other. You don’t
+need to know him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah,” Myra sighed with sincere feeling, “there’s so much
+that I don’t know, that I have to learn.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, well, it won’t be so dreadful,” said Olga. “You know
+Queen Jeanne, don’t you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Which one?” asked Myra quite at sea. “I know the Queen
+of Navarre’s stories....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But not herself, I trust,” said Olga in fun. “Besides, she was
+a Margueritte. But you don’t know the Sforza?” She asked
+it as tenderly, as encouragingly, as if she were talking to a
+child whom she did not wish to hurt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know ... no ... and yet....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, what <em>do</em> you know about her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing,” said Myra disconcerted. “Only the picture by
+Rubens—the little girl with the liverwurst....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-23" class="pagenum" title="23"></a>
+Olga listened for a moment with her eyebrows lifted as if
+she were recollecting. Then she laughed loudly and merrily,
+more merrily than Myra had ever heard her laugh. But,
+strangely enough, her amusement did not wound Myra, although
+she was surprised at this failure on her part to be hurt.
+It was so nice, to see Olga Radó laugh so heartily. Even if
+one’s self was being laughed at.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You poor child!” cried Olga still laughing. “What must
+your mind look like! Ah, I should like to introduce some order
+there for a change!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do,” said Myra fervently. “Please, please, do!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a moment Olga’s face grew serious and thoughtful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no,” said Myra, immediately terrified, “that’s just impertinence
+on my part. After all, you’re not our governess!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Child!” said Olga, leaning forward suddenly and laying
+her hand on Myra’s. “Are you really so sensitive? But you have
+no reason to be. Do you want to learn to read with me? There
+is nothing more I can do for you. But come up and study, won’t
+you? Come up here to me as often as you wish until you are
+bored.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never will be!” said Myra as if she were taking a sacred
+oath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But you know, before we can really dig into anything, you
+will have to make a general survey. First you’ll have to work
+your way through a history of the world. Shall I give you
+Schlosser? Here are eighteen volumes. One volume after the
+other. Yes, my child, Heaven won’t help you this time! If you
+can’t do more, at least you can read a round hundred pages a
+day, that’s all. And when you’re finished, every three or four
+days you’ll come up and exchange your book for another and
+we’ll have tea and chat a little. Like the idea? Shall we make
+it a go?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That is the way it began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-24" class="pagenum" title="24"></a>
+And that is the way it went along for quite a while.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With passionate zeal Myra read the books that Olga Radó
+lent her. And when she had put down the book, her face
+ablaze, it would seem to her as if Olga sat in front of her, holding
+a long conversation with her. On every page there was
+something, something horrible or beautiful, something strange
+or incomprehensible, something which she must tell Olga or
+question her about.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And sometimes she really did have these conversations,
+sometimes she did say what she had it in mind to say, what she
+had resolved to tell Olga—but very seldom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a peculiarly surprising and delightful fact, of which
+Myra was probably always conscious, but which was not clear
+to her until much, much later—one could not steer a conversation
+with Olga Radó.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So strong were her moods that they created an atmosphere
+in a room so that it was impossible to partake of any other
+feeling than hers. And whoever was not sensitive to this, whoever
+did invoke another mood than that with which wood
+and glass and air and silk seemed softly to vibrate, called forth
+a screaming dissonance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt this sometimes, later on, when strangers entered
+the room. She herself never called forth, not even at the very
+beginning, the slightest discord, because she was quiet, because
+she effaced herself in order, half unconsciously, and yet
+almost anxiously, to intercept every vibration that quivered in
+the air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was half unconscious only at first, that is. She felt herself
+so abysmally small and stupid that she hardly dared have an
+idea of her own in Olga’s presence. Later, when her healthy
+nerves had been stretched fine and thin to the breaking-point,
+she mastered the art consciously. She used to say sometimes,
+in fun, “You must have gone down the street in a very bad
+<a id="page-25" class="pagenum" title="25"></a>
+humor today. The houses are still making faces at you behind
+your back!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the third or fourth time that Myra had been up. Olga
+was lying on the divan, smoking so incessantly that the blue
+clouds had difficulty in escaping out the window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra sat in her easy-chair, reading Jean Paul aloud to her.
+“Others, too, at least the reader and myself, would have been
+affected by this transparent night with which April was closing,
+the vast stillness on which the drum-taps beat, that longing
+for one’s beloved with which the morrow again restores
+a barren heart and a shattered life remove;—these things would
+have filled us both with a gentle tremulousness and dreams....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Please stop!” said Olga, pressing her hand to her temples.
+“Don’t be angry, but I can’t stand that today. Be a good girl,
+up there you’ll find Walt Whitman—on the top shelf—more
+to the right. But never mind, don’t bother. Go to my dressing-table,
+you’ll find a silver brush there. No, the one with the
+handle. Let me have it, will you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Obediently, Myra fetched the brush.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga took it from her without rising and beat a mighty
+tattoo against the wall with the back; after a short pause, a
+second and a third.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra laughed. “Must you have the brush for that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Olga. “It’s my telegraph instrument. After long
+years of experience, proved the best. What else can I use? The
+ink-well is no good. A book makes no noise, and besides, I
+don’t like to treat it so....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile there came a knock on the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come in, come in, come in,” called Olga.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door was partly opened and a man’s blond head peered
+in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, a caller?” said a high, thin, husky, and yet not unpleasant,
+voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-26" class="pagenum" title="26"></a>
+“Come in, Peterkin,” said Olga, “it’s only Myra.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her words sent a wonderful feeling of happiness through
+Myra. They gave her a certain justification, a sense of being at
+home in this room, where simply to be tolerated was a pride
+and joy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The little man, who insinuated his delicate and deformed
+body through the door, knew her, was aware that it was she
+who was “just Myra”—that is to say, that she was not a mere
+caller, not a stranger, but somebody who belonged there, who
+would not be in the way. One was as good as alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All Myra’s sympathy darted out to the young man. Perhaps,
+if he had been a more commanding, more handsome youth,
+she would have experienced some feeling of jealousy toward
+him. But he was anything but handsome, in spite of his gentle
+blue eyes and his exquisitely manicured hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra loved him from the very first, in the same way she had
+loved the tobacconist at the corner, with an almost real affection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This first meeting was the beginning of a faithful friendship
+that was to last for years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Otto Peterkin was, on the whole, not inclined to overestimate
+himself or the fascinations which his person was likely
+to exert—and yet, may there not have been moments during
+which he thought Myra’s feeling for him to be of a different
+quality than her love for the little tobacconist?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Peterkin,” said Olga, “fetch your fiddle and play us something.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right, what?” said Peterkin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Something nice. Nothing is too good for this little girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peterkin played. Played what they both loved best, Olga
+and he, and which he would not, could not have played, had
+there been someone listening for whom it was “too good.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra sat perfectly still. It seemed to her as if the notes bore
+her onward like a gently flooding stream, on and on, everything
+<a id="page-27" class="pagenum" title="27"></a>
+was left behind, the drab and dirty city, the crowds of
+carping, clawing people—all were outdistanced, grew smaller,
+vanished in the haze. But the air was ever clearer, ever purer,
+the water ever deeper, the shores more lovely, more free. An
+island appeared, the low-hanging branches of its flowering
+trees were lapped by the lifting waves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That day, for the first time, Myra came home late for supper.
+The long, agitated and irate lecture with which Aunt
+Emily received her, made her feel as if someone had thrown
+dirty water on her. She shuddered with loathing, but she felt
+no pain.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-4">
+<a id="page-28" class="pagenum" title="28"></a>
+IV
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+On Olga Radó’s writing-table was a beautiful box of heavy,
+angular crystal with a smooth silver cover. It was almost always
+empty, for the cigarettes were smoked so fast that it was
+almost no use to take them out of the original package.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One evening, Olga again took the last of the twenty-five
+from her pack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, dear, what a shame! Myra do look on the desk. Of
+course, there isn’t one there either! What an imbecile I am!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll run down quickly and get you some.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, don’t, I won’t have you running downstairs for that.
+Wait, give me my case, there must be a few left in it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga was lying as usual on the divan, and she now sat up,
+tugging keys, handkerchiefs and letters from her pocket; finally
+she opened the case.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hurrah! By a wise economy we can hold out till tomorrow!
+Have one?” She proffered the open case.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said Myra, “I’ll be very nice and decline, otherwise
+they won’t last till morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Angel!” said Olga, snapping the clasp. “My one consolation
+is that you don’t care much anyhow.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“May I look at the case?” asked Myra.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There it is, my angel.” Olga handed it to her. “It’s beautiful,
+isn’t it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra turned the smooth, reflecting gold with careful hands.
+“Incredibly beautiful. I’m simply wild about that broad low
+design. But why the crab? Is it a heraldic beast?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My coat of arms!” said Olga, laughing. “Our family device.
+It signifies that ‘like the crab we would go backward.’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-29" class="pagenum" title="29"></a>
+“It’s not a crab,” said Myra, hesitantly, blushing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No? Who told you so? But in any case, it is unfortunately,
+not a very useful or agreeable creature. It’s a scorpion.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ooh!” said Myra. “Why such a monster? From some special
+preference?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Olga. “Someone had this case made for me because
+I once said that the scorpion is the most decent creature
+on earth. It is my favorite animal.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re not serious?” cried Myra, shocked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, but I am. Yes, I am quite serious—about the scorpion.
+Do you know that it is the only animal in the world that commits
+suicide? It does not let itself be slowly tortured to death
+by human curiosity and cruelty. It struggles like a mad thing,
+and when it knows that it is no longer possible to save itself, it
+kills itself. Isn’t that wonderful?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga had sat up. She was gazing at Myra out of great, dark
+eyes. Her beautiful pale features were set in a strangely anguished,
+yet heroic, expression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was shocked. “And you?” she said, clasping Olga’s
+hand with an involuntary movement. “Is that why you took it
+for your device?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga smiled, a kindly, gentle smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Little stupid,” she said, “that has another significance altogether.
+I must be a scorpion because I have a poison sting. Because
+my wits must be ‘like scorpion stings.’ Someone who
+loved me once declared it was so. And declared, too, that if I
+were driven to an extremity, I would turn my sting against
+myself and kill myself. I do not know if it is true or not. I get
+no particular pleasure out of thinking about myself. But that is
+how this person saw me. And so he had this case made for me.
+See!” She opened it. The little rubies of which the scorpion
+was formed were set <span class="language" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à jour</span>: the device was visible on the inside
+also. And right under it was engraved her name—Olga
+Radó.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-30" class="pagenum" title="30"></a>
+Myra scolded herself furiously, but she could not help it—her
+heart was filled to bursting with furious jealousy of this
+stranger who loved Olga Radó and gave her gold cigarette
+cases.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A beautiful hand-writing,” she said distractedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It isn’t mine,” said Olga. Slowly she closed the case and
+with a gentle gesture laid its smooth surface against her cheek.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is so beautiful. I love it so. And I am so glad that I <em>can</em>
+love it. It was a parting gift. And it was a very beautiful parting.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was on fire with a torment of aversion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A beautiful parting!” she said bitterly. “Are there such
+things?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga sat up abruptly. “Yes, Myra,” she said with real fervor.
+“And there should be more, many more. It is a misfortune that
+people do not understand how to part from one another. Learn
+it, Myra, learn it in time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said Myra obdurately, “I’ll probably never learn. Let
+people to whom love is only a game make a game of parting.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Myra,” said Olga earnestly, “you are a child! Do you think
+that it is any proof of a great love, for me to cling to someone
+till he is sick and tired of me? I would rather die a thousand
+deaths than become a burden to someone whom I love. It is an
+art to begin, though I believe that any individual can conquer
+any other individual, and the beginning will always be beautiful.
+But the end will always be a horrible, bitter, hateful torture.
+It is a great art, indeed, to know how to end. At the right time.
+And in the right way. Learn, Myra, learn it in time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their silence lasted so terribly long. Yes, she must rise now
+and go. But it seemed to her as if the chair were holding her
+tight, or the gray wall above it on which her eyes were fastened.
+She felt that the moment she rose, the tears would start
+from her eyes. That must never be. She strove to set her mind
+<a id="page-31" class="pagenum" title="31"></a>
+on something else, on something quite remote. She wanted to
+go to the theatre next week. She had been very happy at the
+prospect. But actually, the nicest part of going to the theatre
+or a concert was to sit here afterwards and discuss what she
+had seen and heard. That could no longer be. Not next week.
+Never again, perhaps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The silence in the room took away her breath. If only Olga
+would say something. Anything. Scold her, humiliate her. It
+was so cruel of her simply to say nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra made an attempt to get up. Her movement was imperceptible,
+but she felt it in every muscle. At the same instant,
+those painfully retaining lids could no longer hold back the
+constantly welling tears; they quivered, were closed, and the
+heavy drops oozed forth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was terribly ashamed of herself. Something inside
+her made itself small. She would have been so glad to make
+her exterior body small in the same way, to bend down, to hide
+her face. But she did not dare move. She did not want to attract
+attention by the slightest movement. Perhaps Olga’s thoughts
+were far away and she had not even noticed her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The tears splashed on her hand. She did not dare dry them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly she shrank together with a pang. She heard the
+divan creak and the soft rustling of a dress. Olga was on her
+feet. She heard an infinitely gentle, soft voice at her side.
+“Myra, child, what on earth are you crying about?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra did not look up, but sank her head still lower. Then
+Olga was kneeling beside her with a sudden movement, as one
+kneels beside a crying child and tries to peer up into its face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What are you crying about?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra saw the beautiful face before her through a blur of
+welling water. She smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked at the slender white hand that lay on her knee,
+<a id="page-32" class="pagenum" title="32"></a>
+covering her own folded hands. She bent slowly over this hand,
+and pressed her lips, her hot, tear-wet cheeks against it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Child!” said Olga almost impatiently, trying with her other
+hand to raise Myra’s forehead. “If only I knew what it is you
+are crying about!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was frightened by her tone. She raised her head and
+again stared at the gray wall on the far side of the court-yard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga had risen. Her hand still lay on Myra’s head. Its cool
+smooth palm pressed firmly, almost heavily, upon her hair
+and brow. Myra felt this pressure as something infinitely beneficent.
+Felt as if she would fly asunder, were that forceful
+hand to be removed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know myself,” she said softly. “But I wish I had
+been dead a hundred years. Perhaps you would love me, too,
+then.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a sudden gesture, Olga Radó clasped Myra’s head to
+her shoulder and pressed her lips hard, almost painfully,
+against her forehead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And what now?” she asked curtly. There was a strange
+vibrant ring in her deep voice as if she suppressed some resentment
+only by an effort.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In her temples, in her finger-tips, Myra felt the furious hammering
+of a pulse. But she did not know whose heart it was
+throbbing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had a feeling as if it were now her duty to do something
+infinitely great. It seemed to her as if Olga Radó must now rise
+before her in super-human greatness and demand some heroic
+deed of her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt a holy determination to jump out a window at the
+slightest word, or to pierce her breast with a dagger and to
+proffer her palpitating heart in her own two hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Olga Radó made no such demands. She suddenly released
+Myra and went to the window. She laid her fingers on
+<a id="page-33" class="pagenum" title="33"></a>
+the lock and her forehead against the pane. And thus, without
+looking at Myra, without even turning her head, she said after
+a pause, in a strangely quiet, even matter-of-fact tone, “Go
+home, child!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why?” asked Myra frightened. She got up, her legs trembling
+under her. That oppressive feeling of something mysterious,
+something gruesome, lay like a heavy weight on her
+breast. Why was she being sent away? What had she done?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She wanted some kind of explanation. She wanted to place
+her hands on Olga’s shoulders, to turn her around by force and
+search her face for an answer. “I have a right to do so,” she
+thought with mounting anger. “I certainly have a right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But as she made her first step toward the window, Olga
+faced about violently. Crossing her arms on her breast, she
+clasped her elbows with her spread fingers. In her white face,
+her eyes flashed deep, dark and threatening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are to go home,” she said with a composure so forced
+that she seemed to be controlling a simply boundless rage.
+“Can’t you hear? Am I no longer mistress in my own apartment?
+Take your hat and go. Go, go, go, go!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The anger that had been blazing up in Myra was quenched.
+Nothing was left save fear, and a deep, deep sadness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Something seemed to be driving her to Olga as if she were
+scourged. She wanted to fall on the floor before her, she wanted
+to clasp her knees, she wanted to beseech her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Weep, scream, beat me, but don’t use this kind of force
+against me. Tell me what is the matter. I will die for you, but
+don’t send me away, because you are suffering.” She stood
+without moving.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go, go, go!” said Olga.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra Rudloff picked up her hat and went. She strove to
+walk erect and in a straight line. She staggered a little as the
+lock snapped behind her, and she had to support herself
+<a id="page-34" class="pagenum" title="34"></a>
+against the wall. She leaned her whole weight against the balustrade
+because the stairs spun around beneath her like a raging
+whirlpool.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+For a few days Myra lived in a state of dull torment.
+Through the haze of awakening she would remember that today
+she must not take the road to Motz Street. Not today, not
+tomorrow; perhaps nevermore. She was outlawed, outcast,
+banned from all the joys of life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Long, drab and barren, the day stretched out before her. A
+heaviness like lead lay upon her limbs. When the telephone
+rang, she would start up with her heart furiously throbbing, as
+if out of a profound lethargy. But it never rang for her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was nasty weather during those days, cold and rainy.
+But one Sunday night the wind swept the sky clean of clouds
+and dried the streets. In the morning, a blue summer sky
+shone over the city. The sun’s rays, dancing on one corner of
+her mirror, awakened Myra.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She felt as liberated on awakening, as filled with the unconquerable
+force of life, as if at one stroke all her troubles had
+vanished, all her heavy burden lightened. She felt able to resume
+the struggle with all its impediments. Indeed, there no
+longer seemed to be any impediments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Today she would return the books she had borrowed from
+Olga Radó.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And then she would call her to account, would ask her
+quite frankly and cheerfully what was really the matter,
+whether it was Olga’s intention to put her out again. If so, she
+might do it with an easy mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she would not do so. It had been a mood, a caprice—but
+no deep-going rift, no conflict between them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And if she really had committed some offense in Olga’s eyes,
+she would like some explanation, and then would like—ah,
+yes, for her own sake—would like to beg forgiveness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-35" class="pagenum" title="35"></a>
+Myra whistled and hummed to herself while she dressed
+and brushed her hair. When she rang, her stupid heart
+throbbed so that she could not breathe. That came from running
+upstairs too fast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The maid was surprised. “Miss Radó is travelling,” she said
+hesitantly. “Didn’t you know?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the first few moments the shame of not knowing was
+greater in Myra than fear. She felt that she was exposed to the
+maid in the most absurd way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But, but ...” she said, “I just wanted to leave these books
+in her room. But I can just as well give them to you. Be so
+good, as to take them, Erna. Then I won’t even have to go up.
+I am in a hurry. I will see you again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She bounded down the first stairs so that the girl should hear
+her haste. Not until the door had closed behind her, did she
+walk more slowly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga was gone. Without saying a word to her, without
+once calling her up, or dropping her a line, without as much
+as leaving a message for her with the maid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was gone. Without saying where. Without saying for
+how long.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra bowed her head very low on her breast and descended
+quite slowly, step by step.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+A few days later, Myra heard the telephone ring, and the
+maid trotting at a run through the long hall. Myra opened her
+door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For me, Hedwig?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. A gentleman wishes to speak to you. A Mr. Petersen
+or Peterkin, I didn’t quite catch it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the girl’s round features were emblazoned unconcealed
+admiration. This was the first time that a man’s voice had
+asked to speak with her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Peterkin!” Myra shouted excitedly into the mouthpiece
+<a id="page-36" class="pagenum" title="36"></a>
+without paying the slightest heed to the fact that Aunt Emily
+was sitting in the next room. “Yes, this is Myra. What’s the
+matter? Nothing has happened, has it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no, thank heaven! I am simply commanded to give
+you ‘her dearest regards’: I received a card today.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“From where? From whom?” She did not need to ask.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“From Kissingen. I had to look up your address in the directory.
+I did not know your telephone number, nor even the
+name of the street. I wasn’t even sure of your name.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good Lord, you poor fellow. Can’t I see you, or have you
+no time for me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course, I have. I’d be glad to....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shall we go walking for an hour? Will you? Please do,
+please! Today, if you can! Right away? Really? Wonderful!
+And you’ll bring the card with you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They met. After a two word greeting, Myra asked, “Did you
+bring the card? Please, show it to me. Please!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beside the address there was written in a firm, laboriously
+condensed hand:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Please, Peterkin, do me a favor and return the books to the
+Royal Library. One is on my desk, two are on the shelf, to the
+left of the window in the case farthest to the right. And take
+my plant to your room, the maids will forget it and I don’t
+want it to die.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the other side was written across the sky that capped the
+landscape:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Please ring the little girl and greet her for me. You’ll have
+to look up her number in the book. Tell her not to be angry
+with me. All the best to all of you. O. R.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hundreds and thousands of such picture post-cards had
+passed through Myra’s hands in the course of her life, but this
+was the first time the thought had occurred to her: “What a
+wonderful and beautiful invention whereby one can send a
+<a id="page-37" class="pagenum" title="37"></a>
+picture of the place where one is staying. So that is how it looks
+where Olga is now. She sees these houses every day, goes walking
+under these trees, these mountains greet her every morning
+and every evening—truly a wonderful and beautiful invention!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She would gladly have kept the card, but she did not have
+the courage to ask Peterkin for it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It happened so quickly,” she said, “—this trip.” She was reluctant
+to say that she had known and suspected nothing. But
+she was reluctant, too, to ply him with direct questions. Half
+unconsciously, she spoke in phrases that left everything indefinite,
+but which, to a certain degree, sounded him out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Peterkin, “rather peculiarly sudden. On Tuesday
+we were all there, why, we were all sitting together. But that
+night Olga came into my room and said, ‘Give me your railway
+guide.’ And she kept fingering it through and asking me,
+‘Do you know the Black Forest, is it pretty there? What do you
+think, should I go to the North Sea?’ And so on, which is not
+her way. So undecided, I mean, so perplexed. And Wednesday
+night she was off. Didn’t tell a soul where. At first I had a suspicion—a
+notion, I should say, an idea....” Peterkin hesitated,
+and a faint red overspread his pale features—“that you
+had gone away together.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra did not answer. It never occurred to her for a moment
+that her profound silence might possibly produce a queer impression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His words had struck her like a bolt of lightning and she
+was in flames. Travel! Travel with Olga! There was something
+joyfully improbable about the idea. For a few seconds,
+she lived through in imagination all that it might have meant,
+had they decided to do this that Tuesday!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Abruptly, painfully, she returned to her senses: it was a silly,
+unfulfilled dream, one never, never to be fulfilled, perhaps.
+<a id="page-38" class="pagenum" title="38"></a>
+The reality was that she was here—alone—and that Olga was
+gone. Also alone? Or with whom? Nothing in the world gave
+Myra the right even to ask.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+During those weeks Myra’s sole pleasure was to go walking
+with Peterkin. They made excursions together, lay half the
+day beside the water, or took a row-boat, or drank coffee in
+some out of the way inn with a garden, and talked about
+books, about strange cities, and distant mountains, about
+beasts and plants, and of people long dead—and about Olga.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes, when they were together they wrote to Olga,
+sent her picture post-cards, or long poems in doggerel, and
+from time to time they received some hasty reply, and once the
+news that she was planning to return in three weeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was quiet and happy during this time. The companionship
+of Peterkin did her good. When she was home, she
+read and studied under his guidance and counted the days
+until Olga’s return. She drew up a long list of books which
+she intended to have read, of things which she intended to
+have accomplished by that time. She wanted to surprise Olga
+with all the knowledge she had acquired in the interval, and
+labored with a burning zeal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Everything would have gone nicely, if it had not been for
+Aunt Emily. Aunt Emily watched and held her tongue and
+stored up gall and poison. And one day it broke out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was after dinner. Myra wanted to leave the table with a
+curt, “I hope you enjoy your meal,” and fetch her hat from her
+room. Aunt Emily who had sat on the defensive throughout
+dinner, brushed together a pile of minute crumbs, on the tablecloth,
+with her elegant fingers, and at Myra’s words, cleared
+her throat quickly and sharply and said with emphasis, “Perhaps
+you will be so good as to remain seated until I leave the
+table.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bored, but patient, Myra sat herself down again. She did
+<a id="page-39" class="pagenum" title="39"></a>
+not know that this was but the prelude to greater things. She
+thought it was merely one of those daily bits of chicanery that
+wasted at least one’s time and energy if they were not taken
+with the greatest unconcern.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra cast a covert glance at the clock. “Now, of course,
+she’ll sit for another five minutes before she gives the sign to
+rise,” she thought. “Very well, I’ll come five minutes late.
+Peterkin will wait.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aunt Emily continued to heap up crumbs and to clear her
+throat. “Will you be so good, Franz,” she began (it would be
+more precise to say she struck up), “will you be so good as to
+ask your daughter where she intends going this afternoon, and
+with whom? When I ask her, she answers, ‘Walking—with an
+acquaintance,’ or some such bit of wit. So please ask her yourself.
+Perhaps she still retains enough respect to tell you the
+truth, at least.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Franz Rudloff rolled up his napkin and unrolled it again,
+thrust it into the napkin-ring and pulled it out again while he
+sat in mortal embarrassment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know, my dear Emily,” he said without looking up,
+“that I have turned over my daughter’s education to you because
+I know that she could nowhere be so well brought up as
+in your excellent hands. Myra owes you exactly the same obedience
+she does me. You are in full possession of all the necessary
+authority....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Authority!” said Aunt Emily with a mocking laugh.
+“What am I supposed to do? You can’t spank a twenty-year-old
+girl or lock her in her room.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not very well,” said Myra quietly, “thank God! But perhaps,
+I, too, may ask one question—would you mind telling
+me why you need to take such measures?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why? In your own interest!” said Aunt Emily in a tone
+that was meant to express flaming indignation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh?” Myra was still rather amused than excited. “And
+<a id="page-40" class="pagenum" title="40"></a>
+what is going to bring about my total destruction? The fact
+that I go walking with a young man? Good Lord, poor little
+Peterkin! Did you ever happen to see him? I can introduce
+you to him some time, perhaps that will calm your fears!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, what sort of a man is he then?” asked Franz Rudloff,
+knitting his brows. This was intended to sound stern and
+forceful. It sounded rather timid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt a tender pity for her father that was not altogether
+free of contempt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good heavens, papa,” she said, “a fine, intelligent man.
+But a poor, ailing, deformed, little fellow. Hardly the person
+who could prove very dangerous to a young girl’s virtue or reputation.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perhaps not to a normal young girl,” said Aunt Emily,
+quivering with malice. “Unfortunately, I do not know how far
+one can assume that you are normal. Unfortunately, there are
+plenty of young women who have some sick and perverse attraction
+to all repellent and unhealthy persons.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra pushed back her chair so that it grated sharply on the
+floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are absolutely insane,” she said. That was all. Then she
+walked with her firm long stride into the next room, to the
+telephone, and called a number.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“May I speak to Mr. Peterkin? Forgive me, Peterkin, I’ll
+have to disappoint you today. My Aunt will not allow me to
+go walking with you. Yes, I am sorry, too. But there is nothing
+one can do about it. My Aunt thinks it improper. No, no, better
+not ring me, probably that is improper, too. God bless you,
+and don’t worry about it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without turning, without casting as much as a glance in
+their direction, she went up to her room, and locked and bolted
+herself in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus her friendly companionship with Peterkin was interrupted
+for the moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-41" class="pagenum" title="41"></a>
+Franz Rudloff’s quiet sensitive nature suffered severely from
+the tense atmosphere in the house. The meals were eaten in a
+painful silence, every activity in common, a walk, a visit to the
+theatre seemed impossible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He resolved to negotiate a peace and endeavored to bring
+his daughter to apologize. With this in mind he went, as he
+seldom did, to her room. Myra was poring, her head propped
+on her hands, over her books. When her father entered, she
+sprang up and received him as she would an honored guest.
+She moved up the most comfortable chair for him and offered
+him a cigarette.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did not know how he should introduce the subject and
+felt dreadfully embarrassed. Myra endeavored to make the situation
+easier for him, for it pained her to see how he was suffering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She promised the apology, promised to make conversation
+at table, promised to put on a pleasant face and manner from
+morn to night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I promise to control myself, Father,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Control! That was not what Franz Rudloff was asking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Couldn’t you try,” he said timidly, “to reach some different
+kind of feeling for Aunt Emily in your own heart? She really
+has such very estimable qualities. We could have a much happier
+family life if you—I know it is difficult to conquer one’s
+feelings—but if at least you <em>made an attempt</em> to love her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Love!” echoed Myra. Her face was stony in its repose as she
+gazed past him, out of the window, but her breath came
+quicker. “I can promise you one thing, all my life long I have
+rejoiced at the thought of one thing, have waited for just one
+thing—the moment when she would die. I have prayed every
+night to God to make her die, soon, soon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Franz Rudloff turned quite pale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Myra!” he said, his eyes wide.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will promise you not to do that any more,” said Myra
+<a id="page-42" class="pagenum" title="42"></a>
+with a gentle, mournful smile. “Besides, it’s too late now anyway.
+Now I will pray God only to let me be twenty-one soon.
+To make this unhappy year pass quickly, quickly. When I am
+of age, we can always find some way. If she makes things too
+lively for me, I shall leave the house, even if it has to be as a
+nursemaid. If I don’t have to be together with her, she can live
+to a hundred for all I care. But before this, I don’t mind telling
+you, before this there were times when I would gladly have
+killed her with my own two hands.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A yawning chasm opened before Franz Rudloff. He clutched
+the arms of his chair tightly, so violently and spasmodically was
+his poor weak heart pounding.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He rose and left the room, heavily and slowly, like an old
+man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a moment, Myra felt an impulse to jump up and stop
+him, to guide him back to the easy-chair again. Was there not
+some possibility of an explanation, some means of arriving at
+an understanding?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s going because he is afraid,” she thought. “He’s going
+because he can no longer breathe the same air that I do, the air
+that is poisoned by the venom of my evil thoughts. He’s asking
+himself now why he has to be so bitterly punished, why
+he had to give life to a murderess. Who knows; he may go
+directly to Aunt Emily and ask her advice, what to do with
+his abandoned daughter. Perhaps they will consult an alienist
+again. I have expressed an intention to murder my whole
+family. No, no, there’s no point in trying explanations. Father
+simply does not understand me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had gone. She let him go without moving.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-5">
+<a id="page-43" class="pagenum" title="43"></a>
+V
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Three weeks passed, four weeks, five weeks—nothing was
+seen nor heard of Olga Radó. In desperation, Myra resumed
+her long neglected friendship with the Moebius girls. She endured
+the torture of a few boring afternoons without finding
+the courage to inquire about Olga. And when finally she did
+ask, no one knew anything about her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But one afternoon Emmie burst into the room just as Fannie
+was telling Myra the highly exciting story of a letter to her
+which her mother had opened. Myra was not especially clever
+at such things, but she had achieved some sort of ability to say
+“Yes? Oh! Really?” at suitable places, without once understanding
+what the whole business was about. Tossing a couple
+of little packages onto the table, Emmie cried, “Guess whom
+I saw, girls! Olga!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joy and anguish contended in Myra’s breast. So she was
+here! There was the possibility of meeting her, of coming face
+to face with her quite suddenly and unexpectedly—that was
+her first thought. But her second was—“she is back and hasn’t
+told me. She doesn’t want to see me. She went away without
+telling me, she has returned without telling me, I am so irksome
+to her that she has gone to some trouble to be rid of me.
+What can I do? Oh, what can I do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Between the sisters there developed a long conversation
+about Olga. “She takes humors,” said Fannie, “for a while
+she’ll come and see you every three days, and then again you
+won’t catch a glimpse of her for three months.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-44" class="pagenum" title="44"></a>
+“She doesn’t want to meet me,” thought Myra bitterly, “that
+is why she won’t come here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But she’s been travelling all this time,” said Emmie in extenuation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes? And before that?” asked Fannie. “What about the
+three months before this trip? Did she bother her head about
+us? I suppose she had no time for us then either!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But for me,” thought Myra with proud anguish, “oh, for
+me she had time—every day, every day....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You make me think of Aunt Sophie,” said Emmie and
+strove to distort her doll’s face to imitate her aunt. “‘This Olga
+is a very dangerous person. She plays with people as though
+they were puppets. When she is tired of them, she throws them
+to one side. At the same time, she’s fascinating, I admit it, positively
+fascinating!’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” thought Myra, “your Aunt Sophie may be as imbecilic
+as you like about everything else. But she’s right. In this
+she’s right. Olga <em>is</em> fascinating. Oh, so fascinating. And she has
+thrown me aside. What can I do? What can I do?”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Myra brooded for days and nights, trying to think of some
+way out. She felt that she would not be able to persist in her
+pride and say, “She does not want me, therefore she no longer
+exists as far as I am concerned.” To be sure, she told herself so,
+not once, but a hundred times. But a much stronger feeling
+said to her, “It is misunderstandings that are separating us, it
+is impediments that a frank word could remove. I must speak
+to her, I must ask her. She has courage enough and hardness
+enough to tell me the truth. I will make it easier for her. I’ll
+ask in such a way that she can tell me, that she’ll have to tell
+me. And if she says to me, ‘Go and never come back again,’
+then I’ll go and never come back again. I’ll endeavor to order
+my life without her somehow. I’ll be proud too, but first....
+First!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-45" class="pagenum" title="45"></a>
+Myra purchased a bouquet of white roses of a peculiarly
+stiff and melancholy beauty, and took them to Olga.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The maid who let her in received her, beaming with joy.
+“It’s so long since you’ve been here, Miss Rudloff! Miss Radó
+is up in her room. You know your way?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed impossible to Myra that she should be announced
+by the maid. If Olga were not at home to her, it might lead to
+an extremely painful situation. If Olga were not in a mood to
+see her, it would, at any rate, be much better to say so to her
+face rather than to learn it from the maid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stepped quickly and firmly along the endless corridor.
+But her heart beat a little faster as she went.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She rapped lightly on the door and pressed down the latch.
+Olga was sitting at her writing-table, just as she always sat:
+one hand on her open book, her forehead supported in the
+palm of the other, the fingers of which held a cigarette.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the door opened, she turned her head somewhat unwillingly,
+her brows knitted. Recognition passed like a bright
+gleam over her features.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Myra!” she said. “You here again? Where did you come
+from? What do you want?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra tore the paper from the roses, tossed it in the waste
+basket and laid the flowers on the writing-table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do I want?” she said, meanwhile without taking her
+eyes from what she was doing. “To visit you. To see how
+things are with you. But if you wish, I can go again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No!” With a sudden, almost violent gesture, Olga stretched
+her hand after her. Myra laid one finger in it, which Olga
+clasped tightly. “But remember—I did not call you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She glanced up at Myra with a strangely compulsive and almost
+threatening expression of the brow and eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know it,” said Myra with a bitter smile. “It had not even
+occurred to you to call me. I feel myself that I am intruding.
+You hardly need tell me so flatly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-46" class="pagenum" title="46"></a>
+She wanted to retract her hand, but Olga held it fast and
+smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Child,” she said, “little girl! You make me very, very
+happy! More than you can ever imagine. I think if you knew
+how happy I am, you would become quite conceited. But remember,
+I did not call you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Myra almost impatiently, “I don’t know why
+you attach so much importance to that statement.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I know,” said Olga quietly. “I don’t want you ever to be
+able to reproach me with being egoistic.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah,” said Myra, “that’s hilarious! So that I may never reproach
+you—incidentally, I do not know for what—you let me
+go and die and never trouble your head about me! No, you are
+not a bit egoistic!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga laughed. “I give up. It always comes back on me. One
+way or the other. So let us bear what we can as long as we act
+sincerely. It’s like a fall day outside.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is good to have you here. Light the samovar and bring
+us a cup of tea. We’ll call Peterkin, to come and play something
+for us.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Once as Myra entered the room she saw Olga hastily conceal
+an open letter she had been holding in her hand, under the
+books on her desk. Myra thought that Olga seemed distracted
+during their greeting, rather vexed and embarrassed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What is the matter?” she asked, without relinquishing Olga’s
+hand. “Has something provoked you? You look so comical
+today.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I?” Olga flushed. Again that sudden, dark wave of blood
+overspread her features, making them appear all the paler the
+next moment. “What are you thinking of? What could have
+provoked me? Quite the contrary.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Quite the contrary?” said Myra with a somewhat forced
+gaiety. “Is it pleasure that is making you like this? Then it
+<a id="page-47" class="pagenum" title="47"></a>
+would be indiscreet to question further. Let’s talk of something
+else. I’ve brought back your Chamberlain. And also your
+Herz. Father has him in the library.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They talked of this and that. But Myra could not forget the
+letter. While they were speaking, her thoughts kept straying
+into other channels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What can it be?” she thought. “Jealousy? Have I any right
+to be jealous? What do I mean by being hurt, suspicious, yes,
+actually angry, because this woman receives a letter which she
+does not want to let me see? Good God in Heaven, she is not
+bound nor obligated to me in any way. She may be secretly
+engaged, may have a dozen love affairs—why should I expect
+her to tell me everything or make me her confidante? What
+business is it of mine what letters she receives?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was vexed and scolded herself. And all the while she
+fretted and was sad and struggled against her feelings and
+could not conquer them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It isn’t jealousy,” she thought, “it isn’t an insane desire to
+possess. It is simply the understanding that life is only bearable
+when people go hand in hand. It is the consciousness that I can
+only go on if Olga takes my hand and leads me. Now I have a
+feeling as if she had let go my hand, that a door has shut
+between us, that I am left alone, helpless, in the dark, and that
+she is going laughingly along—I don’t know with whom....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga was called to the telephone. It was some time before
+she returned. Myra was sitting a few feet from the desk. One
+corner of the letter was peeping out from beneath a pile of
+books. If she stretched out her hand, she could touch it, could
+draw it out, without rising from her chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a painful struggle. She would have liked to slap herself
+because she could think of but one thing to do. She meant
+to commit a crime. Oh, it was worse than that, was indelicate,
+tactless, contemptible. But she thought of a thousand excuses
+for herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-48" class="pagenum" title="48"></a>
+“It isn’t just curiosity,” a voice cried within her. “Whom
+will I be hurting by it? Who will it make suffer? Nobody.
+Neither her nor the person who wrote the letter. And it is of
+such immense importance to me. Here I cling to her with every
+fibre of my body, and yet I do not really know what kind of
+person she is. Why is she so reserved? If I can arrive at some
+certainty that will alter my whole life at one stroke, I will do it
+at any cost—even at the cost of a crime.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With one twitch she had drawn out the letter. Her heart
+was pounding like mad; there was a thick film over her eyes
+so that the letters danced on the paper. There was the letterhead
+of some firm, a few words—“pay”....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra heard Olga’s voice at the door and hastily crammed
+the letter into her pocket. Olga would probably never miss it.
+And although she had hardly read it, hardly understood what
+it contained, Myra already had a plan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was extraordinarily anxious to get home that day, and so
+abstracted and laconic that Olga finally asked, “What is the
+matter with you today? Has something happened? Are you in
+a bad humor?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was amused as she recalled the conversation when she
+arrived. “Quite the contrary,” she said with an exaggerated
+emphasis that escaped Olga. “I’m in an unusually good humor!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra locked herself into her room and studied the letter as
+if it were a momentous document. So this was the love letter
+which had been kept secret from her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The company “again” requested a payment of several hundred
+marks, “in default whereof we regret that we shall have
+to place the matter in the hands of our attorney.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra’s heart was filled to overflowing with a tender pity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Poor dear pet,” she thought, “so that’s how they plague
+you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-49" class="pagenum" title="49"></a>
+She raised the letter and was tempted for a moment to carry
+it to her lips. Then she began to calculate. The few marks that
+she could save from her pocket-money—no, that would never
+be enough. She had squandered too much, namely for the
+flowers. But hadn’t she something else? Her roving glance
+searched the room. Books? No, she would give them up only
+in case of extreme necessity. But her jewelry! All that trash for
+which she cared absolutely nothing! No one would ever ask
+what had become of bracelets and rings, necklaces and scarf-pins.
+She never wore such things. At worst, she could pretend
+she had lost them. Or she could redeem this or that bauble from
+her pocket-money.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She wrapped the entire contents of her jewel-case in tissue
+paper and thrust it deep into the pocket of her coat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The way to the pawn-shop was not hard to find. Myra recalled
+almost with pleasure that she was not unpractised in
+enterprises of this nature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was much harder to take the money to the fashion-shop.
+In doing so, Myra had a feeling that she was perpetrating some
+dreadful deception. After all, she had a perfect right to pawn
+whatever jewelry had been given to her. But to act for Olga
+Radó, to do something in Olga Radó’s name, that seemed an
+unheard of piece of daring to her. And it was so difficult to assume
+the correct tone. To have debts was, according to everything
+that Myra had ever heard or been told, something very
+dishonorable, almost unclean.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Therefore, when one came at last to pay a debt after many
+duns, one must be humble, must sue for pardon. But it was
+different when one came for Olga Radó. Then one could
+come only in the manner of a princely emissary and with majestic
+superiority discharge the forgotten trifle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra put on her best dress and her top-loftiest expression. It
+all went much better than she had expected. The people really
+<a id="page-50" class="pagenum" title="50"></a>
+did treat her like a princely emissary, and she was very proud
+about it, doubly proud because she felt that their all but obsequious
+amiability was meant for Olga Radó.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yes, all that was very easy. But now that she had the receipted
+bill in her pocket, nothing in the world could have
+given her the courage to return it to Olga. She consoled herself
+with the thought that it probably wasn’t necessary. The shop
+would not dun her any further, and Olga would forget the
+affair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a week, Myra was still secretly triumphant and
+thought that all perils were happily averted. But one day she
+was received by Olga with a stony face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What on earth can be in your mind!” said Olga instead of
+her usual greeting. “What right have you to do a thing like
+that in my name?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I?” said Myra, struggling to assume an innocent expression,
+“What have I done?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know very well what you’ve done!” said Olga harshly,
+“You’ve acted irresponsibly. Irresponsibly! I won’t tolerate
+any meddling with my affairs. Least of all from you. Can’t
+you see the unheard of presumption in your conduct? Are you
+going to appoint yourself my guardian? Or do you intend to
+support me? What on earth can you be thinking of?” She
+paced to and fro with long strides. Her tone became more
+and more heated, more violent. Suddenly, she stopped short,
+leaning against the desk, stood arms akimbo and asked very
+quietly, with simply a gentle movement of her hand, “How
+did you get hold of the bill anyway?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was terrified. This was the moment she had dreaded.
+All the rest might have been foolish, but it was generously and
+unselfishly done. She could defend it with an appearance of
+rectitude, at least in her own eyes. But to this question she had
+no excuse to offer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now the game was up. No lie could save her now. So she
+<a id="page-51" class="pagenum" title="51"></a>
+resolved defiantly, desperately, to tell the truth. She threw
+back her head and glanced at Olga with an expression that
+seemed to say: “I deserve death, but I do not fear it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I stole it,” she said. “From your desk.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga remained quite calm. She merely knitted her brows a
+little as if trying to recollect. “It came while you were there,
+didn’t it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I didn’t leave it lying open. Now I remember very well—I
+pushed it somewhere under the books.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Myra, gritting her teeth, “but I took it out from
+under the books.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When?” asked Olga genuinely astonished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“While you were telephoning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga did not answer. She bowed her head and stared in
+silence at the floor. Myra saw that her mouth was tightly shut,
+but she was biting her lower lip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her silence was more dreadful than the harshest words.
+Myra felt that she was really incredibly depraved. And the
+inquisition was by no means at an end. Many more questions
+followed, much more terrifying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a while, Olga raised her head. “But you had no way
+of knowing what it was. It might just as well have been a personal
+letter.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra’s forehead began to burn. “Now I will have to lie,” she
+thought for a moment, “I’ll have to say I saw the figures or the
+letter-head.” But she could not lie. She had done something
+so contemptible that she had no right to purchase Olga’s forgiveness
+with a lie. She must confess, apologize, atone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is what I thought, too!” she said as if with sudden resolution.
+But she could not look at Olga’s face while she said it.
+She stared past her at the window. But without looking, she
+saw Olga make a sudden angry gesture which she instantly
+controlled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-52" class="pagenum" title="52"></a>
+“So that is what you thought?” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To Myra it seemed as if she made this effort, as if she forced
+herself to speak so softly in order not to scream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But tell me, you must have had some reason. I can’t believe
+that you would go rummaging in every strange letter, like a
+maid, out of mere curiosity.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said Myra. “I did have a reason, of course I had a reason.
+But I can’t tell you what it is.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you can’t tell me what it is,” said Olga with a gentle
+smile, “then I will not ask you either. But reason or no reason,
+do you think it was a very pretty thing to do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said Myra honestly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I don’t think so either,” said Olga quickly. But after a
+pause she added reflectively, almost as if it hurt her, “But understandable.
+If I wanted to keep anything secret, my dear
+child, I would do it so artfully that you and your silly little
+tricks would never even find it out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was said in a tone of such scornful superiority that Myra
+blenched. She felt the truth of those words, she felt that Olga
+was as if surrounded by a wall, one through which she, stupid,
+little, Myra, could never penetrate to the heart of this being,
+even by tracking her like a criminal and reading her letters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed as if Olga sensed Myra’s dumb terror. For she said
+suddenly in her deep, warm voice, “For the rest, I never conceal
+things from you. Nothing that could be of any interest to
+you. I write no love letters and receive none. But if there is ever
+anything that you are itching to find out, ask me—it is the easiest
+way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her kindly, cordial tone did Myra no end of good, ten-fold
+good after all the anxiety she had endured. She made an involuntary
+movement. A feeling that welled up hotly within her
+drove her to Olga, to kiss her hands in gratitude. Olga saw or
+sensed this emotion—and averted it. It was a barely perceptible
+<a id="page-53" class="pagenum" title="53"></a>
+twitching of her eyebrows that frightened Myra back and
+held her spellbound where she stood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was not until Myra had put on her hat and was going
+that Olga asked suddenly, “Will you do me a favor, Myra?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Anything,” said Myra with conviction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But this is no easy task—I....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So much the better!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no, it’s nothing heroic in the romantic style. Something
+quite unpleasant in a paltry way.” She bit her lip and hesitated.
+“I should prefer to do it in any other way, but I don’t
+know how. I want you to do something that you have certainly
+never done before in all your life—to pawn something
+for me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra broke into a laugh. “There you underestimate me
+considerably. The pawn-shop is one of the commonest of my
+childhood memories.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, Myra!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s a long story. I must tell it to you some time. But first
+you tell me what it is you want.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want you to take this and pawn it for me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a sudden gesture Olga swept the cigarette case from
+the desk and gave it to Myra, who took it, shocked, in both
+hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But you can’t do that, Olga!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga gazed out the window. “Don’t discuss it, please,” she
+said in a hard voice, without turning her head. “I alone know
+what I can, and what I must do!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was silent. There was no contradicting that tone. But
+she was not convinced.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Myra kept remembering the tender gesture with which
+Olga had once pressed the cigarette case to her cheek. And
+then she recalled the pawn-broker’s hairy hand with its flattened,
+<a id="page-54" class="pagenum" title="54"></a>
+dirt-rimmed nails. No, she could not lay the scorpion in
+those hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She took the case to a jeweler and had it appraised. She did
+not have enough money in her possession to accomplish the
+pious deception which she had in mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she knew how to remedy that. Not in vain had she
+been Frieda Ellert’s pupil. She knew very well how to get at
+the silverware, and which cases contained the most valuable
+pieces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Myra stole secretly to the side-board, she thought of a
+dozen years before and smiled. It was no longer as exciting as
+it had seemed then. Although, if Aunt Emily were to discover
+it, it would lead to precisely the same unpleasantness. Her aunt
+was prepared to call in a psychiatrist again. What a ridiculous
+farce the whole business really was. In a year she would be of
+age, and free to dispose of her grandmother’s legacy, and yet
+for the sake of a hundred marks today, she had to steal in her
+own father’s house!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will you let me have the ticket?” asked Olga when they
+met.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The ticket?” Myra grew a trifle embarrassed and rummaged
+in her pocket. “Yes, just a minute! What did I do with
+it? Don’t worry, it’s here somewhere. But first I’ll count out
+the money!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not necessary,” said Olga emphatically. “The money is just
+where it belongs. No scenes, please! I have given you no right
+to insult me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t understand,” said Myra disconcerted. “What does
+it all mean?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It means that I would far rather sit at a street corner and
+beg than to be obligated to you for money. I sent you to the
+pawn-shop simply so that the money would be given into
+your own hands. Otherwise, I should have had to force it on
+<a id="page-55" class="pagenum" title="55"></a>
+you, and I hate such scenes. Now that’s enough, I don’t want
+to hear another word about it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not another word, I said. As for the ticket, you can keep it,
+and redeem it for me later. I would rather not see in whose
+hands it had been. I’ll give you the money for it the first chance
+I get.” She laughed quickly. “When, the gods alone know!
+Come, let’s play a game of chess. I’ll concede you a castle.”
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-6">
+<a id="page-56" class="pagenum" title="56"></a>
+VI
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+“You know,” said Olga the next time they met, “I have an
+idea. Don’t you think I could give instruction in languages,
+Myra? Five lessons every day, at two marks a lesson, makes
+ten marks, and one can certainly live on that if one manages
+very carefully.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A wonderful idea,” said Myra angrily. “In the first place, I
+see you living on ten marks a day. And in the second place, I
+should never see you at all any more.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What on earth are you complaining about!” said Olga,
+laughing. “You spend every day God gives us from morning
+till noon and from noon till night with me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If it’s too much,” said Myra soberly and somewhat hurt,
+“all you have to do is say so.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Never fear,” Olga consoled her, “I can take care of myself.
+If I want to be rid of anybody, I am perfectly explicit!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank heaven. If only I can depend on that. But it is I who
+have the idea. We’ll combine pleasure with profit. You give
+me five hours instruction in foreign languages, and I will have
+my father pay you for it—at his own express request.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+But it did not go quite as smoothly as Myra had anticipated.
+Aunt Emily herself went to look for language teachers, and
+unearthed a pair of very dignified elderly ladies. A sixty-four-year-old
+professor was, in her opinion, questionable because he
+was unmarried. She took Myra herself to introduce her niece.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As a result, Myra had the painful task of declining their instruction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-57" class="pagenum" title="57"></a>
+But at least, she succeeded in getting her father to give the
+money for the classes directly to her instead of sending a
+money order or having the bank arrange it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga was very exact with the lessons. She insisted on a conscientious
+punctuality and, as a teacher, was strict and pedantic.
+Myra was a zealous student in order to live up to her teacher’s
+good opinion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So far everything went as planned. Except that Olga did
+not think to economize and live on the money from the lessons.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Peculiar happenings multiplied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One day Uncle George bobbed up suddenly in the city. Myra
+had always had a special predilection for Uncle George. He
+was really the only one of her relatives whose stately and
+distinguished appearance, definitely masculine manner and
+a certain matter-of-fact seriousness pleased her and even compelled
+her respect.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He greeted Myra in a peculiar way, with a conscious affability
+that seemed to say: “I’m really quite innocent, there’s no
+reason for you to wonder why I am here or what it has to do
+with you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra’s delicate perceptive apparatus instantly registered suspicion.
+Her suspicion was intensified when she heard the
+key grind as all three—Father, Aunt Emily and Uncle George—withdrew
+into the study.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So they were locking themselves in? What might that
+mean? Did it concern the servants or her?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had never taken any particular interest in family conferences.
+But the cautious turning of that key aroused an uneasy
+curiosity in her. She sauntered past the door several times.
+But all she could hear was an indistinct murmuring. No doubt
+about it, they were whispering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-58" class="pagenum" title="58"></a>
+Myra longed to escape the oppressive and unfriendly atmosphere
+of the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After dinner, during which only Uncle George had spoken,
+extolling in loud and well-rounded periods the beauties of the
+little city and the virtues of its children, Myra finally ventured
+a question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are all going to sleep after dinner, aren’t you? Then
+may I spend an hour with my friend before tea?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A general silence followed. All three looked at one another,
+nobody looked at Myra and nobody answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her father cast an uneasy glance that seemed to beseech succor,
+from one to the other. Uncle George drummed on the table
+and looked expectant. Aunt Emily cleared her throat and
+distorted the corners of her tightly compressed mouth in a
+sweetish grimace that was intended for a friendly smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nobody spoke. Aunt Emily did not wish to obtrude herself.
+She withheld her answer, waiting to see if either of the men
+would reply. But they did not look as if they intended to break
+the painful silence within the next few moments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They had left it up to her, hence she must speak. She drew
+herself up and made a face whose wrinkles were intended to
+express profound sympathy and serious concern. But to Myra
+it seemed as if those sharp little eyes were flashing, as if that
+rigidly erect lean body was trembling with malicious joy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I guess you will have to omit that today, for a change, my
+dear child,” she said in a gentle tone, but her voice was as
+sharp as a knife. “We are expecting a visit this afternoon which
+concerns you most particularly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Me?” asked Myra, and glanced at her father.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Rudloff veiled his eyes and endeavored to control a nervous
+twitching of his lips. He did not answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, you!” said Aunt Emily as affably as if she were announcing
+a great pleasure to Myra.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that moment, Myra felt that danger was threatening her.
+<a id="page-59" class="pagenum" title="59"></a>
+She felt as if she were caught in the fine meshes of a net,
+which would be drawn over her head the next moment by a
+slight twitch of Aunt Emily’s bony fingers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She felt as if all the doors were locked and guarded, as if
+nothing could save her now, but at this very moment, without
+hesitation, without a second thought, to jump out the window,
+and to run, as long as her breath lasted, to rush in mad flight
+through the streets to Olga.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She turned pale and started to run. It was not even a start, it
+was only the will to move that thrilled her muscles. But Uncle
+George must have perceived it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, no, Myra!” he said in a somewhat forced tone of
+kindness and assurance. “Just keep cool, my lass! Nobody’s
+going to do anything to you. You must simply have confidence
+in us and say to yourself that everything that happens is happening,
+in the last analysis, for your own good. You must try to
+help us a little in our efforts, which are motivated wholly by
+a regard for your welfare, and not make our task more difficult
+by any childish spleen. Thus by a mutual effort we will
+get over this period, and later on you will be very grateful to
+us for having used a loving coercion to put you on the right
+track. You’ll look back on this period as on a bad dream of no
+significance for your later life.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This solemn pronouncement increased Myra’s vague uneasiness
+to all but insane terror. It was all so mysterious and incomprehensible.
+She knew that Aunt Emily was only waiting
+for a question in order to gush forth in a torrent of words.
+Therefore she did not ask any. But what had happened? What
+was about to happen?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Out the window! Out the window!” was the only thing she
+could think of. But the moment she heard the door-bell ring,
+she shrank within herself, for she knew that it was too late.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The maid came slinking in, as if she were entering a sick-chamber,
+and handed Franz Rudloff a card.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-60" class="pagenum" title="60"></a>
+His hand trembled as he took it from the little silver tray.
+He had to support himself against the table in rising. His face
+was distorted, drawn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you taken the Professor to my room? I will be there
+in a moment.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hastily he poured himself a swallow of water. His stiff,
+starched cuff rattled against the carafe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went out, making a visible effort not to stagger, and to
+hold himself upright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The three who were left sat on in silence. But Myra could not
+bear to remain at the table. When she rose, Uncle George made
+a hasty gesture as if to detain her. But she did not go to the
+door, she would make no further effort to escape. She went
+to the window and gazed through the drawn lace curtains
+down at the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Monotonous cries ascended of children at play. A delivery
+truck drew up and stopped at the house opposite. The driver’s
+helper jumped out, unlocked the back, loaded himself with
+parcels and closed the doors again with a sharp bang.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every movement, every sound impressed itself with unusual
+distinctness on Myra’s brain. She was aware of nothing, nothing,
+but the sharp perception of commonplace things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door opened behind her back. She heard her father’s
+restrained and rather hoarse voice saying, “Emily, will you be
+so kind as to come here a moment?” Then the scraping of a
+chair and the rustle of skirts. Myra did not turn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door closed again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now she was alone with Uncle George. Now she might
+have asked him for some kind of explanation. Of these three
+individuals he was by far the most sensible. Ah, but what use
+was it? He, too, was a stranger to her, an utter stranger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother!” she thought as something like a convulsive sob
+rose in her throat. “Dear, good mother, why did you leave me
+alone, all alone in this world?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-61" class="pagenum" title="61"></a>
+When the door next opened, and her father appeared and
+said nervously, “Please, come with me, Myra,” she experienced
+a feeling almost of joy—as a man who has studied well rejoices
+at an examination, or a brave man at a battle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She walked with a perfectly firm step through the room,
+smiling a superior, rather disdainful, smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At her entrance, a slight man with sharp features and piercing
+eyes rose from her father’s chair. In his well-trimmed
+pointed black beard several premature white hairs were showing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As no one appeared to be going to introduce him, he murmured
+his own name, with a slight bow, while casting at the
+others a glance that resembled a command for instant withdrawal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rudloff was visibly relieved, but Aunt Emily hesitated and
+departed grudgingly. Even at the door, she cast back a long
+and curious glance, but the Professor did not utter a word, did
+not make a gesture until she had closed the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he drew up a chair. “Please be seated.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra sat down obediently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man in front of her leaned forward somewhat. “And
+now, my child,” he said in a soft, almost ingratiating voice,
+“tell me that you will trust me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra drew herself up stiffly. “I certainly shall not, Professor!”
+she said quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man drew back a little.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What does that mean?” he asked in surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It means,” said Myra while her heart throbbed as if it
+would burst, “that my Aunt called you in, and that I distrust
+everything she does. Probably she intends to shut me up in an
+insane asylum, and your function is to declare me mentally
+deranged. She held a similar party for me when I was quite a
+little girl. But if you are a psychiatrist, you know that the feeling
+that one is under observation is capable of inducing something
+<a id="page-62" class="pagenum" title="62"></a>
+resembling insanity, even in the most normal of individuals.
+And you will make allowance for that in my case.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The physician smiled—a shrewd smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have not the slightest reason to question your exceptional
+mental ability. On the contrary, nobody questions it. And
+neither has anyone the slightest intention of shutting you up
+in an insane asylum. I came here to talk with you a little, because
+of certain scientific and human interests. May I ask you
+a few questions?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Certainly!” said Myra, “I probably will answer your questions
+more exactly if you will permit me to smoke a cigarette.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Gladly!” said the Professor obligingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra took the cigarette case from the table and offered
+him one. He accepted and while he scratched his lighter and
+held the little flame for her <a id="corr-1"></a>he asked in a casual tone, “You are a
+confirmed smoker, are you not?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I got into the habit studying,” she said. “It helps me concentrate.
+And as I can’t rid myself yet of the suspicion that you
+will construe some stupid answer into feeble-mindedness....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Professor laughed. “I would have a hard time doing that.
+However, you are right, one can chat much more easily over
+a cigarette. But tell me now, what was this affair you mentioned?
+What kind of wicked designs did your estimable Aunt
+have on you when you were a little girl?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh,” said Myra, “she called in a children’s psychiatrist
+because I took the silver from the side-board.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Aha!” said the Professor with an interested and amused
+smile. “Why did you do that? Did you like silver?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I pawned it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pawned it!” The Professor laughed aloud. “How did such
+an idea ever get into your child’s head?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was not my own,” said Myra seriously. From the hazy
+past the image of Frieda rose clearly and distinctly. “My governess
+<a id="page-63" class="pagenum" title="63"></a>
+led me to do it. I was completely under her influence,
+which was not a very good one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah!” said the Professor with mild astonishment. “Are you
+easily influenced? You do not look it. Probably there is nothing
+on earth that could make you do such a thing now!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The Devil!” said Myra in sudden terror. “I forgot to redeem
+that stupid silver!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Professor was tremendously amused, but he did not let
+her see it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What,” he asked, “the silver you pawned ten years ago? It
+certainly must be lost by now!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said Myra, frankly, “that which I just pawned. I clean
+forgot it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t worry about it,” said the Professor amiably, “it has
+already been redeemed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a moment Myra did not quite comprehend. “How can
+that be? Nobody knew about it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The ticket was found in your pocket.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Found!” Myra sprang up. “Found? That is to say, that that
+shameless person has been going through my things again!
+Oh, what a pity that I did not catch her at it—I think I would
+have throttled her with my bare hands!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Please sit down,” said the Professor, not sharply, but so
+imperatively that Myra obeyed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If by ‘that person’ you mean your Aunt, I should urge her,
+as a man and a physician, to supervise you more closely than is
+customary among adult human beings.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am an adult human being,” said Myra angrily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are a child,” said the physician mildly, “a child that
+does not even suspect the danger it is getting into, but who will
+be very grateful to us all once it has grown up and learned to
+understand from what we protected it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I believe you are mistaken,” said Myra, in an icy voice. “I
+am not in any danger. But if I were, I can protect myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-64" class="pagenum" title="64"></a>
+“As long as you are not of age, you cannot refuse our helping
+hand.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It sounded kindly, but quite definite. “I question whether
+you would find in yourself the necessary strength to break with
+the friend who is at present influencing you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The blood rushed suddenly to Myra’s heart. She felt that she
+had turned as white as snow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you know about my friend?” she asked bluntly.
+She felt as if she could not breathe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The physician smiled a superior smile. “In any case, more
+than you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I doubt that,” Myra interrupted in a hard, disdainful tone.
+But his composure was not to be ruffled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know,” he said imperturbably, but firmly, “that you are
+under the influence of a woman who can do you a great deal
+of harm. I understand you quite well. You <em>are</em> a child. I will
+not deny that the lady possesses intelligence and charm. You
+are proud of this friendship and would be willing to sacrifice
+anything for her. You would let this friendship start you on a
+path of crime....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, bosh!” said Myra.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I understand you to be contradicting me. But just let your
+cool intelligence come into play for a moment and think logically.
+You purloin silver from your parents’ side-board. You
+ask your father for money for lessons and spend it on automobile
+excursions with your friend, on champagne and tickets
+for the Opera. You pay your friend’s dress-maker’s bills with
+money that you have come by in irregular ways. Yes, my child,
+don’t you see yourself what an abyss you are heading for?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How did they know all that? As if lit up by a flash of lightning,
+the whole chain of events was suddenly clear to Myra.
+They had had a detective watch every step she took. Wherever
+she went, strange eyes had been glued to her, strange eyes and
+Aunt Emily’s notions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-65" class="pagenum" title="65"></a>
+Myra sat quite still and did not stir. She felt as if brutal hands
+were tearing her clothes from her body piece by piece. Not the
+hands of this stranger; it was Aunt Emily’s hands that were
+doing it, it was Aunt Emily’s face she saw before her, wreathed
+in a mocking smirk and slavering with foul enjoyment. Slowly,
+slowly, Myra’s fingers clenched to a fist. She bowed her head;
+the corners of her mouth twitched and she swallowed hard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again the Professor’s voice came softly and soothingly. “Just
+think back on your childhood! Didn’t you love this young
+woman who influenced you as a child? And aren’t you glad
+and grateful now that you were separated from her? Well, you
+will be just as grateful to us later on when you are capable of
+judging. If you stop to think, you know it now in your heart of
+hearts. It is you who are the true friend. It is you who love,
+who sacrifice yourself. It is you who are used, are treated as a
+plaything, or denied on occasion, and sooner or later tossed
+aside. Do you imagine that this is the first case I have seen?
+Meanwhile you will be ruined for the rest of your life, made
+sick in body and soul, robbed of every possibility of happiness.
+What is left for you? According to your capacities—death or
+suicide. I have seen terrible tragedies come about in this
+way....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra strove in vain against the impression which the words
+made upon her. Her tensed nerves felt a cold breath that made
+her shudder to the very core of her being. It seemed to her like
+a warning cry from the darkly veiled future. Death—the end!
+A fearful something strode inexorably toward her, casting its
+cold shadow in advance. She shivered. She had to make an effort
+to regain her outward calm. She dug her nails in the arms
+of her chair and swallowed once or twice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All that is quite aside from the point,” she said at last with
+an effort. “Perhaps you will be so good as to tell me why they
+really called you in and what they have decided concerning
+<a id="page-66" class="pagenum" title="66"></a>
+me. If not an insane asylum, do they intend to shut me up in
+a cloister, or a reform school, or send me to America?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The physician smiled. “None of those things. But you will
+leave in a short time to stay with your Uncle George and his
+family. There in the fresh air and amidst quiet surroundings,
+your nerves will grow strong again and you will be in a position
+to make sane and healthy judgments unassisted.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When do I leave?” asked Myra curtly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Today!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At least I have to pack my suitcase!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It has been packed while we were talking!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That was what she had feared. Myra felt the walls, the hand-cuffs.
+She glanced about her like a hunted animal driven into
+a trap. No escape anywhere, no possibility of flight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were separating her from Olga. That was bad, but not
+the worst. They were doing it by force. They should have asked
+her to take this journey, they should have allowed her time,
+time to say good-bye, time for an explanation, time to pack her
+own things, her books. Now Aunt Emily was at her bureau,
+was packing for her, was rummaging around. In an hour she
+would be sitting in the train, without having been able to inform
+Olga. And Uncle George would be sitting across from her—as
+her keeper. And what would happen here in the meanwhile—to
+her desk, her books, to Olga....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had a desire to tear something to pieces, to dash out her
+brains against the walls. She did nothing. She rose from her
+chair, quite pale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that all?” she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am delighted,” said the Professor, rising at the same time,
+“that you agree to this journey.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Agree?” said Myra with a contemptuous twitch of the lips.
+“I submit to coercion because I know that all resistance is useless.
+If my Aunt wished, she could have dragged me off in
+<a id="page-67" class="pagenum" title="67"></a>
+chains, and my father would look on, and all the courts in the
+world would uphold her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Professor went up to her and opened the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Miss Myra and I find ourselves in perfect agreement,” he
+announced cheerfully. “I have prescribed a little change of air,
+and she is overjoyed to pass a few weeks under your hospitable
+roof, Herr von Seyblitz!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Uncle George rubbed his powerful hands, Franz Rudloff
+attempted a feeble smile, and Aunt Emily made a surprised,
+and as it seemed to Myra, disappointed face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She rushed up to the Professor and hissed in a low voice, but
+loud enough for all to hear, “But you told me, Professor, that
+you wanted to examine her, to see if there were not some physical
+abnormalities ... and I think....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Professor endeavored in vain to silence her by a slight
+motion of the hand and eyelids. It was too late.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra had already heard. Had suddenly, instantly, understood.
+It was too late.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was conscious only of the fierce desire to see this horrible
+creature die under her hands. She did not know she moved.
+The floor moved under her feet. She heard a gurgling that was
+strange and hideous, and yet seemed to come from her own
+throat. She felt her fingers close on a thin, withered neck, felt
+at the same moment her own wrists gripped by hands that were
+like iron, gripped so tightly that all the blood seemed to stop
+in her veins and she thought she would smother. She felt she
+could not endure this torture one heart-beat longer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let me go!” she growled. “Let me go!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The physician immediately released her right arm, and a
+moment later Uncle George released her left.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then her wrists began to ache. She rubbed them quite mechanically.
+She felt exhausted, quiet, shattered. She was almost
+happy at the idea that she must leave this house, these people,
+at once, this very moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-68" class="pagenum" title="68"></a>
+She turned to the physician. “When does the train leave?
+Isn’t it time to get ready?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We are going the same way, I think,” the Professor remarked
+casually when the auto had drawn up before the door.
+“Have you room in the car?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra looked at him in surprise and with a little smiling
+scorn. “Subterfuge is unnecessary, Professor, if you want to take
+me to the station. My family will gladly forego the pleasure.
+It is better for all concerned.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She gave her father her finger-tips, which he clasped in both
+hands. “Good-bye, papa, take care of yourself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aunt Emily drew back against the wall as if she feared a new
+assault on her life, but Myra passed her with a contemptuous
+glance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The journey on the train was longer than she expected. Myra
+gazed intently out the window, striving to impress on her mind
+the name of every station, every village, every crossing. It was
+possible that she would have to return on foot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had no money—whether she would have the opportunity
+to pawn or sell valuables was doubtful. She glanced at
+the mileage-signs—fifty miles from home. She could make four
+miles an hour with ease. Too bad it wasn’t summer. It wouldn’t
+be pleasant passing the night in the open at two below zero.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-7">
+<a id="page-69" class="pagenum" title="69"></a>
+VII
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Myra sat on the window-sill in the bright, friendly mansard
+room, smoking a cigarette and polishing her nails. On the
+white cover of the sewing-table which Myra had degraded or
+advanced to a dressing-table, a thick, little, black book lay
+open—The New Testament.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door was pushed ajar and her Cousin Herman insinuated
+himself through the crack. But he stopped midway and
+stood toying with the latch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Coming down for supper, or have you still got a headache?”
+he asked laconically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shut the door, child,” Myra commanded in a low voice. She
+did not want the cigarette smoke to float downstairs and assail
+Aunt Antonia’s sensitive nostrils.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy closed the door but continued to toy with the latch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why do you hang on to the door?” asked Myra, amused.
+“Come in, come in! Take a seat!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy hesitated. “Of course, we’re not supposed to come
+up here,” he ventured. “But if your headache is better, I guess
+you can’t be sick any more!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sick?” said Myra in some surprise. “Are you supposed not
+to come up here because I’m sick?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said the twelve-year-old, too shrewdly for his age,
+“because it’s contagious!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, Mannie!” Myra uttered a short laugh. “My sickness
+certainly isn’t contagious.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What kind of a sickness have you?” The boy drew nearer
+curiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-70" class="pagenum" title="70"></a>
+Myra hesitated. The boy cast a covetous glance at the cigarettes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Give me one!” he begged suddenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Certainly,” said Myra. “As many as you like. But you’ve got
+to mail a letter for me, secretly, so that not a soul sees you. Can
+you be depended on?” Myra glanced at him sharply and searchingly.
+The boy’s honor was touched.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you think I’d let myself get caught?” he said with conviction.
+“What do you think I am, a dummy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He received the cigarettes and the letter and stowed them so
+artfully in his blouse that Myra smiled. “This is not the first
+thing he’s hidden from mother’s sharp eyes,” she thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he was still reluctant to go. He hesitated for a while and
+then came out with it. “Say, what kind of sickness <em>have</em> you
+got?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra wondered what she should tell him. Then her glance
+fell on the cigarette case. “Well, Mannie,” she said after a pause,
+“I was bitten by a scorpion, and now the poison is all through
+my blood. And you know, the only thing that will cure a
+scorpion’s bite is scorpion’s poison. But there aren’t any scorpions
+here. It’s all superstition that it’s contagious. It’s only phalanges
+that are so poisonous you die from washing in a basin that’s
+been used by somebody who has been bitten by one. Your
+mother has mixed them up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then it’s not contagious?” asked the boy, venturing a step
+nearer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No!” Myra shook her head with a doleful smile, “I believe
+that people can die of it—but it’s not contagious.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Young Herman, who undertook to convey the letter to the
+post-office with much secrecy and a most important air, was
+firmly convinced that it must be a love letter which had been
+confided to him. He would have been greatly astonished could
+<a id="page-71" class="pagenum" title="71"></a>
+he have learned that the letter spoke more of him, of little Herman
+himself, than of love.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Formerly I used to hate my Uncle’s children,” Myra wrote
+after a matter-of-fact recital of the events of the past few days.
+“I had no reason to hate them except that they had such protruding
+ears. Tell me, dear, what has changed me so completely?
+Now I see character in every childish action, I see
+destinies inextricably bound up with those characters. I see that
+little Anna is going to have a hard time of it in life—not merely
+because her ears stand out—and I feel that I would like to help
+her, to give her something, to multiply the few happy hours of
+her life....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have made a discovery, Olga. You’ll laugh at me. My
+Aunt Antonia has closed the bookcase to me and laid the New
+Testament on my table. I have a suspicion that she meant to
+punish me with it. A year ago, at the height of my rebellion, I
+flung it against the wall and would never have believed that
+I could actually read it again. And yet we’ve made friends once
+more! What a glorious book it is! But you’ll laugh at my discovery
+of the fact. Is there anything beautiful on earth that you
+do not know and love?”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Uncle George and Aunt Antonia were most agreeably surprised
+by Myra’s behavior. They had expected an unmanageable
+child whom it would be necessary to tame, if the occasion
+required, force. They found a quite perfect and lovable
+young lady. Hence they disliked to be always restricting and
+supervising her, and allowed her one liberty after another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra took full advantage of these liberties and began preparations
+for her flight. Day or night, she had never had any other
+intention and her constant preoccupation with such plans kept
+her in a state of almost wantonly happy excitement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the first problem was where to find money. Myra sold
+<a id="page-72" class="pagenum" title="72"></a>
+everything with which she could possibly dispense. Still it was
+not enough. She began to dispose of articles from the household.
+But that was difficult and impractical. In the first place,
+it might be discovered before she was gone, and then all would
+be lost. In the second place, the results did not repay the trouble
+it required, and it hurt her to see valuable things given away
+for a song.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One day Uncle George received a large sum of money by
+mail, and locked it away in the desk, in Myra’s presence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra stared as if hypnotized at the locked desk. Here was
+all she needed, but how could she get at it?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She lay all night without sleeping, or even trying to. Her
+mind was working feverishly. Should she break open the desk
+that night? There was no train at that hour which would be
+certain to bring her to the city before daybreak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Should she take a wax impression of the lock? The locksmith
+might become suspicious if she asked him to make the
+key. Should she steal the key-ring? They would miss it immediately
+and search the whole house. Should she remove the
+key to the desk from the ring? They would immediately notice
+that this most important key was missing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next day Myra procured a half dozen keys from the
+locksmith. She told him some story about a key to the bookcase
+which she had lost, and was delighted at the assured and unembarrassed
+manner with which she told it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That night she stole down and tried the keys. Nearly all were
+easy to insert, but they did not unlock the desk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next day she asked for her Uncle’s keys in order to get a
+book from the library. While she was kneeling in front of the
+bookcase, she removed the key to the desk from the ring. In
+its place, she attached one resembling it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She took a book from the case without seeing what it was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As she handed the keys back to Uncle George, she felt sure
+<a id="page-73" class="pagenum" title="73"></a>
+he must hear the furious throbbing of her pulses. She thought
+her face must be as white as chalk and made an effort to set her
+frozen lips in a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her Uncle took the keys without glancing up from his
+newspaper, and with a brief “Thanks,” thrust them into his
+trousers pocket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra packed her suitcase and sent a telegram. Late in the
+afternoon, she carried the suitcase to the station.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At half past seven they sat down to supper. The train left at
+half past eight. During supper Myra complained of a headache.
+At her request her Uncle gave her a headache-tablet and
+advised her to lie down immediately.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra said, “good night,” while the others were still at table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In order to reach the stairs from the dining-room, she had
+to pass through the darkened living-room. While she listened
+to their voices in the adjoining room, expecting at every moment
+to hear a chair scrape as someone rose, she unlocked the
+desk and crammed a handful of bills into her pocket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the hall her coat was hanging, a piece of forethought. She
+slipped into it and opened the little rear-door that gave on the
+garden. She did not dare pass the dining-room windows in
+front.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was nothing difficult about swinging herself over the
+low garden fence. She looked back once. That side of the house
+was completely dark. She listened. Not a door opened or window
+rattled. Then she turned and ran as if the Devil were after
+her, across the fields, to the station.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+During the journey on the train, she fought against an agony
+of fear. She saw herself pursued, hand-cuffed. The train seemed
+to crawl along at an intolerable pace, and to stop much longer
+than required at each station.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At times she felt that it would be better to get out and run,
+<a id="page-74" class="pagenum" title="74"></a>
+simply to run and run and run until she had no more breath
+or strength, than to wait, an inactive, restless captive, until the
+lazy engine brought her to her destination.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With sudden terror she thought of the possibility that her
+telegram might not arrive in time or that Olga might not be
+at home to receive it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And what in God’s name was she to do if Olga were not at
+the station!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To go home was impossible. She could already feel the
+straight-jacket and hand-cuffs. Should she rush through the
+night to Olga? Ring a strange door-bell and wake up the people
+in the pension? What right had she to do that?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was nothing left but to take a room for a night at a
+hotel. But where would she be safe? Early next morning they
+would be searching everywhere for her. She shuddered to think
+of what lay ahead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shuddered, too, at the thought of a lonely night in a
+strange room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were moments, too, when she regarded her own actions
+with astonishment, terrified by her daring. Suddenly feeling
+the bills crinkling in her waist, she asked herself with
+amazement, “Good God, how did I ever manage to do it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At eleven twenty the train arrived at the depot. The light
+and the tumult in the buzzing hall whose vast vault was lost
+in darkness, was still more alarming than the silent night of
+the fields.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Olga Radó was there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Amidst that sea of hurrying, scurrying, searching people she
+stood perfectly still, but drawn up a little taller than usual.
+Surrounded by stupid, stolid, deformed faces, her own pale
+face shone brightly. From under her dark brows, which were
+knitted as if threateningly, her dark eyes sparkled and peered
+along the line of coaches.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-75" class="pagenum" title="75"></a>
+Myra flung open the door before the train stopped. Regardless
+of all, she forced her way through the crowd, jabbing her
+suitcase into people’s knee-joints. She stretched out her hand,
+no, she clutched like a falling man at a support, crying between
+tears and laughter, “Olga!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga’s face which had turned abruptly to her, remained
+grave. Not the ghost of a smile relaxed those tense features.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Myra!” she said in her deep voice. “My child! What folly
+are you up to now!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was a little taken aback. Not much. She would have
+preferred another reception—but what difference did these
+words make to her or the tone of these words? Olga was there.
+She gazed into her face, held her hand, listened to her voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now everything was all right.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you angry?” asked Myra, her eyes laughing, while she
+clung to Olga’s hand. “If you really are angry, you old Philistine,
+I won’t even dare confess all the wicked things I’ve done!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not angry,” said Olga earnestly, “I simply refuse to be
+in any way responsible. If you’ve run away, that’s your affair!
+I have not influenced you to it by a single word, a single glance.
+I knew nothing about it. I want to get that straight now and
+forever!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Myra, “but as soon as you’ve got it straight, perhaps
+you’ll tell me whether or not you’re glad to see me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I must be candid,” said Olga with a vague smile and
+without looking at Myra, “I’m not unglad that you’re here,
+but I’m a little disturbed. Have you reflected at all as to what is
+to become of you now?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra had thought about it. But reflected? No, that was certainly
+not the right word. She had thought of herself as coming
+to Olga in order to be with Olga, to remain with Olga. She had
+pictured herself in Olga’s comfortable room, the one room in
+which she had known happy hours, had meant to hide herself
+<a id="page-76" class="pagenum" title="76"></a>
+there, never to go into the street, never to go home—now she
+was aware of the folly of the idea and did not dare to declare
+it to the shrewd eyes watching her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know,” she said pitifully. “I only know that I can
+never go home, never, never, never, never! I’ll look for a job as
+a nursemaid or a chambermaid—anything!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then you might just as well have remained where you
+were. They certainly wouldn’t have beaten you or let you go
+hungry. Or do you expect that you’ll have more freedom as a
+maid?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Myra defiantly, “at least I’ll have my Sundays
+free and nobody can forbid me to spend them with you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do what you like as far as I’m concerned!” Olga stood still
+and closed her eyes for a moment as if in mortal terror. “You
+are positively brutal, Myra! Don’t you see how you’re going
+to incriminate me! I can’t accept responsibility for this, I can’t!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were still standing on the platform which was by then
+almost emptied of its swarming crowds. Only a few night-travellers
+were still hurrying toward the exit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt tired and shattered; the light suitcase was like a
+ton in her hand. The draught in the vast hall made her shiver.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can’t we sit down in the waiting-room for ten minutes?”
+she asked dejectedly. “Perhaps if I think about it quietly, something
+will occur to me that I can do. But if you feel so tired,
+why don’t you go home?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Olga, “and leave you sitting here alone all
+night in the depot! Have you gone clean crazy, my dear child?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They sat in the empty waiting-room, warming their cold
+fingers on their glasses of hot tea. Myra related the story of her
+flight. She took the crinkled bills out of her waist and thrust
+them into her pocket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra had almost expected Olga to laugh. While she was
+telling the story, the whole business struck her like an incredibly
+<a id="page-77" class="pagenum" title="77"></a>
+comical adventure. But Olga’s face remained intensely
+serious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And now?” she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m going to a hotel!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And I?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are going back to your pension!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I won’t leave you alone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come with me, then,” said Myra with a flare of hope.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Olga bitterly, “and the first thing tomorrow
+morning the police will come and arrest us. No thank you. I’ll
+probably be accused of making you commit grand larceny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then,” said Myra after further reflection, “in that case we’ll
+have to behave like real embezzlers. That is, take the next
+train and keep going. We’ll simply get off at some station or
+other and go to a hotel. From there I’ll write my father, and
+beg him first of all to straighten out the money business. Perhaps
+he’ll be reasonable and I’ll be able to come to some agreement
+with him. In six months, I’ll receive my grandmother’s
+legacy. If my father won’t give me anything, I’ll borrow against
+my legacy: it can be done somehow.” Myra looked at the huge
+schedule. “The next train leaves at midnight!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga’s face had lost its stern expression. Her eyes were
+laughing with a deep joy. But she still hesitated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re absolutely crazy!” she said. “No night-dress, no
+toothbrush!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have linen enough,” said Myra eagerly, “and we can buy
+a toothbrush!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What ideas you do have!” said Olga slowly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra saw that she was already half convinced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Grand ideas!” she said radiantly. “Fascinating, entrancing
+ideas. Don’t you think so?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, but <em>I</em> never would have thought of it,” said Olga emphatically.
+“<em>You</em> talked me into it. It’s your idea and no one’s
+else!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-78" class="pagenum" title="78"></a>
+“Absolutely! I’m much too proud of it to let anybody else
+claim the authorship.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The midnight train was a passenger train. They sat alone in
+a compartment for non-smokers, that was dimly illuminated
+by the blue-shaded light in the ceiling. They made an unsuccessful
+effort to remove the shade in order to turn on the little
+gas flame full force.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let it be,” said Myra in fun. “It’s better for us if the compartment
+is dark, then our pursuers can’t recognize us from
+outside.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was in such high spirits that she elaborated the idea
+into a merry comedy and even induced Olga to take part.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They played at flight. They stooped whenever anybody
+passed outside. They breathed freely again as soon as the train
+had started. Myra did her hair differently so as not to be recognized.
+They “bribed” the conductor with the “sum” of three
+marks not to let anybody enter their compartment and afterwards,
+were worried lest the enormous tip might cause them
+to be suspected as embezzlers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know,” said Myra mysteriously, “we certainly ought
+not to get off at the place our tickets call for. If we do, they’ll
+be after us immediately. We’ll simply get off at some other
+stop.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” Olga agreed, “seven stops from here. Seven is a mystic
+number.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was enthusiastic. “It’s beautiful, it’s wonderful! We
+go on, and we don’t know where. We get off, and we don’t
+know where. We’ll wake up early tomorrow morning in a
+strange city, and won’t know the name of it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How strange that sounds!” said Olga, paraphrasing the
+words. “Like something really profound! We live—and we
+don’t know how! We love—and we don’t know why! We die—and
+we don’t know when!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-79" class="pagenum" title="79"></a>
+“No,” said Myra, “I don’t know when! Thank God! But I
+do know why! Also, thank God!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ghost of a shadow seemed to pass over Olga’s face as if
+she wished not to hear what Myra said. “I used to long so dreadfully
+to know when I would die,” she said reflectively. “I think
+it is so unjust for us to know absolutely nothing about how
+much time we have before us. We ought to have a right to regulate
+that! I used to envy a friend of mine who died of tuberculosis.
+She knew exactly—so much of my lung is left, I can
+live so much longer provided I economize, provided I spare
+myself. Or I have the choice of squandering the rest, of throwing
+away what’s left. That must be beautiful! As it is, you know,
+I never can leave my room until it is cleaned up, because I suffer
+so from the fixed idea—who knows if I shall ever return. The
+thought is so appalling to me that some time I may have just
+to step out of life and leave everything in disorder behind me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was on the verge of tears. She wanted to conceal, to
+dispel the sadness that was tormenting her, so she said with
+affected rudeness, “Don’t you think you’re really insane? Perhaps
+you’ll be good enough to choose some other topic of conversation
+for this dismal night-journey! If you don’t, I’m going
+to sit in the next compartment until you’ve finished your meditations.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Child!” said Olga, smiling and clasping her hand. “You
+are quite right! Scold me! It’s because of my stupid oracle!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oracle?” said Myra, astounded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Haven’t you found that out about me yet? I’m like these
+old peasant women who, whenever they are in trouble, stick
+a knitting-needle in the Bible and fish out a quotation.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But you haven’t got a knitting-needle,” said Myra, laughing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nor a Bible either! The Bible must be an heirloom. A new
+one is no good. But you really don’t have to have a Bible for
+that purpose: you can take any book and open it. It’s remarkable,
+<a id="page-80" class="pagenum" title="80"></a>
+what answers you sometimes find. I asked yesterday, for
+example—when your telegram came—whether I should go to
+the depot....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And?” asked Myra in suspense.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, it’s all silliness,” said Olga with a wry smile. She turned
+away and stared intently out of the window into the black
+night that was flitting by them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course, it’s silliness,” said Myra sincerely. “But it worries
+you all the same. And you won’t see how really silly it is until
+you’ve told me. So tell me—then we can laugh at it together.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga turned to her again. She was trying to maintain an
+uncertain smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When Radomonte Gozaga entered Genoa—in some campaign
+of vengeance or other, I don’t remember just what—he
+wore a doublet on which was embroidered a scorpion. Under
+it was the legend: <span class="language" lang="la" xml:lang="la">Qui vivens laedit, morte medetur</span>.<a class="fnote" href="#footnote-1" id="fnote-1">[1]</a> Is that
+an answer or not?”
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a class="footnote" href="#fnote-1" id="footnote-1">[1]</a> “What life wounds, is healed in death.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra seized Olga’s hand. She must rend some veil that the
+words, which had been uttered with such effort, had thrown
+over her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are certainly insane!” she said. But her voice did not
+ring true. She had to clear her throat of a sudden huskiness.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The brakes ground under the coaches. “The sixth stop!” said
+Myra mysteriously, her eyes big. “The next is our fate. I hope
+to heaven, it isn’t a large city.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the train was once more in motion, they began to
+make ready to get off. The next stop might be ten minutes or
+an hour distant—they did not know.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They had placed their suitcase on the seat, and were standing
+side by side at the window, their faces pressed against the
+pane in an effort to penetrate the darkness rushing past.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-81" class="pagenum" title="81"></a>
+“There are lots of woods in this country,” said Olga, “pine
+woods!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” Myra exulted, “we’ll go walking in them tomorrow.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woods ended. A slate-gray, clouded sky hung above
+long, gently rolling, dark fields. More trees, at first singly, then
+a thick black woods that extended to the railway embankment,
+and above which not a scrap of sky was to be seen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again, the trees grew more sparsely, disappeared. Again,
+broad fields. Then at a distance they could not estimate, as
+though set between the gently rolling furrows, a tiny light
+twinkled. Another, and another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look! Look!” cried Myra, in raptures. “Maybe that’s our
+stop.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Strange,” said Olga, “maybe one of those lights will be in
+our window tomorrow morning. And perhaps we’ll have a
+feeling of home when we pass those lights ten years hence.
+But now we don’t even know the name of the place.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A watchman’s shack flitted past. Now and again a section of
+shiny rails was lit up by a lantern. Once more woods grew
+right up to the tracks, but more open, criss-crossed by numerous
+paths. Then a hedge ran along beside them for a while.
+After the clipped hedge, a bright wooden fence. Behind it, quite
+close at hand, the outlines of individual houses already loomed
+darkly. A rather smoky lantern, and gates that closed a dark
+tree-bordered highway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Other bits of woods and gardens. Beyond them, little light
+after little light. The train was slowing, creaking, puffing.
+Wooden columns flashed out suddenly, supporting the roof of
+a narrow shelter. The train stopped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga seized the suitcase, lifted the latch and sprang down
+the high steps. Myra followed her, in a strange dreamy trance.
+She was worn out by the two sleepless nights; her senses, sharpened
+a thousandfold, seemed to notice everything. The thin
+<a id="page-82" class="pagenum" title="82"></a>
+film of hoar-frost that covered the earth and the trunks of the
+trees, the coarse faces of two women in peasant’s attire, who
+hurried past, the conductor’s long-drawn shout, the leisurely
+slamming of doors, the red hands in knitted mittens, of the
+man at the guard-gates, the little dark room, its walls pasted up
+with bills, and the worn benches, the whistle of the departing
+train behind her—all was impressed on her mind with ineradicable
+distinctness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga pushed open a door, descended a flight of stone steps,
+and they were standing on the uneven flag-stones of a broad
+square, feebly illuminated by the lights of the station.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Left and right—pitch darkness. As far as they could see—nothing
+but bare, twisted trees, unpaved, sodden paths, slightly
+frozen over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At a little distance there was something that resembled the
+beginning of a street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga stood still and looked at Myra with a smile. “Well,”
+she said, “are you shivering already? What would you give now
+to be safe at home under a down-comfortable, with the electric
+light to turn on whenever you want it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing at all!” said Myra defiantly. “On the contrary, I
+think it’s extremely pleasant right here. And if we don’t find
+any accommodations, I shall mind it for your sake only. It
+was I who led you into this excursion!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, for all I care,” said Olga deprecatingly, “for all I care,
+we can spend the night on those benches in the station. But
+if you’re afraid, we can go back and ask the man at the guard-gates
+if there’s a hotel.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” Myra insisted, “don’t ask. Let’s go on.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few hundred paces ahead of them, the houses began. Dark
+and sleeping or with an occasional lighted window. They stood
+rather apart, surrounded by their gardens and fields. The road
+was paved with cobbles. Presently the houses stood closer together,
+<a id="page-83" class="pagenum" title="83"></a>
+began to form a street which was illuminated by flickering
+lanterns.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The street broadened to a kind of market-place. It was a
+dreary polygon, without any artistic embellishments, lime-trees,
+or a purling spring. On one side, was a long, squat, gray
+box with a broad roof, sloping low, and several dormer-windows.
+Over the broad arch of the dark entrance a tin star was
+swaying, not unlike a shaving-basin, while a big blue lantern,
+swinging from a beautifully curved arm, illuminated the words:
+“At the Sign of the Blue Star. Hotel and stable accommodations.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look,” said Olga, “even a hotel!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They looked for a night-bell. But they could not find even
+a door. Beside the entrance-way was a handle for ringing a big
+bell at the end of a rusty iron rod. But it was difficult to reach.
+Myra made an attempt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t bother,” said Olga, “that’s not for poor pedestrians
+like us. Moreover, we’ll wake up the whole town. Let’s try
+inside instead.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They ventured into the dark cavern of the entrance, but did
+not get far. Before the passage could open into a court, a huge
+rack-wagon barred the way. But beside the wagon they found
+a flight of steps and a little wooden door in the wall. They felt
+a metal knob, tugged at it and succeeded in evoking a shrill
+ring that made them start, so hair-raisingly did it shatter the
+silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Steps, voices, a light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A sleepy-looking individual appeared in the doorway, slippers
+on his bare feet, in grayish-yellow underwear, over which
+he had managed in some remarkable fashion to pull on a jacket
+that he held closed under his chin with his left hand. In his
+upraised right he carried a wax candle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga took over the management of negotiations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-84" class="pagenum" title="84"></a>
+She told the sleep-drunk man a long tale of the train by
+which they had just arrived, and of how the “Blue Star” had
+had been recommended to her, and how she regretted having
+had to disturb his slumbers, but the trains arrived at such uncomfortable
+hours, and they couldn’t remain on the streets,
+and, of course, the people at the station had directed them here.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man rallied sufficiently to say, “One moment, please!”
+vanished and left them standing there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They looked at one another and laughed, waiting patiently.
+After some time a gas-lamp without a globe was lighted farther
+up the stairs, and the man reappeared, this time in black
+trousers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fact that he was collarless and wore neither a jacket nor
+stockings did not prevent a certain deftness of his movements
+from revealing at once that he was “mine host.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He conducted them into a big, dark, cold room, jumped
+up on the cushion of a chair and lit the gas-jet. <a id="corr-3"></a>It was evidently
+the “Blue Star’s” “imperial suite.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The high, broad bed, the ponderous plush sofa almost vanished
+in the vast room. Between the windows stood a huge,
+gold-framed mirror before which, on the console, were wax
+flowers under glass, while the walls were elegant with numerous
+gay prints, most of them in heavy gold frames.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mine host” stooped and lit a gas-heater. A long row of little
+pointed blue flames puffed up, were mirrored in a reflector
+of grooved copper that cast a warm and ruddy glow on the
+shabby carpet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Splendid!” said Olga, tossing her gloves on the big, round,
+plush-covered table. “Now it will be warm here, too. That’s
+simply ideal! No, sir, we don’t need another thing. We should
+like to have breakfast here in the morning. Is this the bell—splendid!
+Thank you! Good night!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door closed behind him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wonderful!” said Olga, including it all in a wide embrace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-85" class="pagenum" title="85"></a>
+“Are you serious?” asked Myra timidly. “I was afraid your
+sense of beauty would be in constant agony! Those pictures!
+And those artificial flowers, and the plush-upholstery!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Simply splendid!” said Olga. “It just couldn’t be any different.
+I’d have been terribly disappointed if those fighting
+stags were not here, or that wonderful Empire maiden with
+the apple-tree in bloom. Do you think I want to see Chippendale
+furniture or a Kokoschka in the ‘Blue Star’? God forbid!
+As it is, I think it’s simply heavenly!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra unpacked her suitcase, spread night-gowns on the bed,
+set bottles and boxes on the wash-table. Olga walked about
+noiselessly, whistling with soft, sweet flute-tones. She stopped
+before each picture, studying it with childish enthusiasm,
+while she made up long stories about it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here!” said Myra, laying her silk kimono on the chair, “you
+can put that on.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have my wrapper, that’s all right for me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wonderful,” she said, “simply wonderful! Now all I need
+is warm feet. Then I’ll be absolutely happy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She rolled a chair up to the gas-heater and began to untie her
+shoes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shall I help you?” asked Myra, eager to serve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never heard of such a thing!” said Olga provoked. “Why,
+I wouldn’t let my maid do such a thing for me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s another matter,” said Myra, smiling. “It’s a distinction
+that one does not confer on maids.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re certainly insane!” Again that sudden deep crimson
+pulsed into Olga’s cheeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had drawn off her thin silk stockings and was holding
+her bare feet toward the flame. She raised her arms and slowly
+ran Myra’s brush over the hair that fell in heavy black curls
+about her neck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra jumped on the chair and turned out the gas-light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-86" class="pagenum" title="86"></a>
+“Now,” she said with a laugh, “you can have a painting
+made of yourself, or a chromo and frame it in gold and hang
+it on the walls here. Title: <span class="language" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Au coin du feu</span>, or The Witch, or
+Firelight, or something just as good. How can anybody be so
+shamelessly lovely?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Indeed!” said Olga dryly. “Now you’ve done it! We haven’t
+any matches!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In the first place, there’s light enough for me,” said Myra,
+seating herself on the floor in the ruddy firelight. “And in the
+second place, we can always light a spill from this. If we can’t
+find anything better, we’ll use a hundred mark note. We have
+plenty of them. Child, what a marvellous foot you have! But
+so cold, they’re always like ice!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She clasped both hands about Olga’s foot. It was as nobly
+shaped, as beautiful in line and color as if a masterhand had
+chiselled it out of marble. But it was as heavy and as cold as
+stone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra endeavored to warm it in her hands, but then she could
+not resist temptation—she set her lips upon its cool, smooth,
+white skin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga broke away, sprang up and ran through the dark room
+to the window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Olga!” cried Myra, terrified, and rose, hesitantly. “What is
+the matter? What’s wrong with you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No answer. Myra went over to her. But when she reached
+the window and stretched out her hand toward her, Olga
+dodged as if hunted, along the wall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stood, cowering, in a corner, Myra barring her way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her lovely pale face gleamed weirdly in the dark. Her tense
+features were at once frightened and threatening, like a
+wounded animal’s, that sees itself surrounded and prepares
+to defend itself desperately.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra shrank from the expression of those compressed lips,
+<a id="page-87" class="pagenum" title="87"></a>
+those darkly glowing eyes. Timidly she laid her hand on Olga’s
+arms, which were folded across her breast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga started and cowered deeper in her corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go away!” she said through clenched teeth. “Let me be!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must not stand in your bare feet on the bare floor,” said
+Myra on the verge of tears. “You’ll catch your death of cold. I
+don’t want you to do anything but sit by the heater. I can sleep
+in the hall, in front of the door, or I can take another room, or
+I can jump out the window. But come out of that corner, I can’t
+bear to look at you a minute longer!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She seized her by both shoulders, but Olga shook her off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let me be!” she said angrily. “Can’t you see that you’re torturing
+me to death? How can anybody be so stupidly cruel?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her voice broke and suddenly her face was covered with
+tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra could control herself no longer. Her eyes, too,
+brimmed over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t understand!” she said with quivering lips. “If I’m so
+hateful to you that you can’t stand me, what are you here for?
+Why do you have anything to do with me? No one can like
+a person whose presence is a torture to him. But I know why
+you can’t stand me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why?” asked Olga astonished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra shook her head in silence, still struggling with her tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why can’t I stand you?” Olga demanded more urgently.
+“Answer me! I want to know!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra still avoided looking at her. “Because I love you too
+much!” she said bitterly and sadly. “It must be dreadful to be
+loved by someone whom you do not love! Almost disgusting!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Idiot!” said Olga and stroked Myra’s hair very tenderly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, don’t,” said Myra and disengaged herself from the
+hand. “There’s no use forcing one’s self.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga let her arms drop heavily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-88" class="pagenum" title="88"></a>
+“One must force one’s self,” she said, breathing softly but
+with an effort. “If I did not force myself, I would so smother
+you with caresses that you’d be frightened to death and run
+away.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt the pulse throbbing in her neck so that she could
+scarcely breathe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t do it,” she said. “Though I would certainly never run
+away, I might go mad with happiness!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Olga slowly raised both her slender white arms and
+laid them on Myra’s shoulders. Myra felt their powerful, delicious
+pressure grow tenser and tenser.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Since Olga was barefoot, their faces were almost on a level.
+Their eyes bored into one another, gravely, unflinchingly, while
+they felt in every vein the terrible throbbing of their hearts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then they bent toward one another, like two thirsting souls,
+and laid mouth upon mouth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They did not release one another again. They kissed one another
+more and more covetously. They walked through the
+room, nestling close together, they sat on the edge of the bed
+in one another’s arms. Their clothes slipped off and lay on
+the floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The coarse, damp sheets exhaled a chill miasma. They
+hardly felt it, so hot was the blood in their youthful bodies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They pressed upon one another as if they wanted to pass
+one into the other, to be merged, be one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their slender, supple limbs wove one into the other, as the
+trees of a virgin forest inextricably interpenetrate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They did not speak. But like a murmuring music, they heard
+the droning pulse of one another’s hearts, and the breath that
+came quicker and quicker.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their bodies seized each other as wild beasts seize and shake
+the bars of their cages. They buried their nails in one another’s
+flesh, their teeth in their tensed muscles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then they lay nestling one against the other like children
+<a id="page-89" class="pagenum" title="89"></a>
+tired with play, while their lips brushed eyelids and cheeks as
+gently, as softly, as a butterfly a swaying flower.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Little one!” said Olga, and all the bells pealed in her voice.
+“My beautiful, my good one!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My dear,” said Myra. “Oh you miracle of heaven! What are
+you really? Are you a wild creature? Or a god? Or the spirit
+of a white orchid?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know,” said Olga. “I believe I am a god. But an
+hour ago I was a poor tortured creature. Are you not proud,
+little girl, to be able to work such miracles?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wish I could work miracles,” said Myra longingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga laughed a hard laugh. “Then you’d change me into a
+man!” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“God forbid!” cried Myra, clasping her in both arms. “Never!
+Never! Never! But if I could work miracles, I’d never let this
+night end. I would make it last forever!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The red glow of the copper behind the gas flame filled the
+room with a warm light. The little pointed flames trembled
+gently, and the bright spot on the worn gay carpet trembled,
+too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga leaned on her elbows, supporting her head in her hands.
+Between her white fingers her black curls peeped. In her pale
+face, her clear dark eyes glowed in infinite majesty and clarity,
+like twin stars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Forever!” she said softly. “Everything that is God, is eternal!
+Do you not feel that this night belongs to God? Time is an
+invention of the Devil. Satan invented the passage of time in
+order to make man apostate to God. But God remains eternal.
+Satan invented much else, besides, sickness, pain, vermin and
+money. Above all—money! But time came and the passage of
+time, and could never be dispelled again. Now they are a part
+of every invention of the Devil. But what is God’s is eternal.
+New happiness always effaces old pain as if it had never been.
+And happiness endures. No pain can efface it. I would die of
+<a id="page-90" class="pagenum" title="90"></a>
+shame if I thought that only the nerve-endings in our skin
+vibrate. Don’t you feel that something has happened to your
+soul that must remain with it beyond all death? Don’t you
+feel that this hour has changed you beyond any power of death
+to change?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Myra. “And more than any birth. I was born
+today—not twenty years ago. Now I can say to myself for the
+first time consciously: ‘I live!’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<em>We</em> live!” said Olga, clasping her to her, with an exultation
+in her voice that was like the jubilant cry of a wild bird rising
+in flight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We live, sweetheart! Forever, and ever, and ever, we live!”
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-8">
+<a id="page-91" class="pagenum" title="91"></a>
+VIII
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+When Myra awoke the next morning, she found a bright,
+cheerful, winter sunshine in the room. Her first thought was
+of Olga. She was not there. Her coat, too, was gone from its
+hook. Myra felt a sudden pang of terror. Olga was gone, forever,
+would not return, was lost, irretrievably lost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra sprang out of bed, suddenly wide awake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she saw Olga’s hat and gloves. She picked up the
+gloves and stroked them, pressing them against her cheek. A
+sense of joy and tranquillity seemed to emanate from the soft
+gray leather. So it was no dream, no witchery: Olga had really
+been there, Olga would return. The gloves retained the shape
+of her beautiful slender hands, were still filled with their
+life....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From below came a familiar grinding and scraping sound.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra ran in her bare feet to the window and drew the
+heavy white twill curtain a little to one side. On the window-ledge
+lay a thick cushion of white snow. The houses below all
+had roofs of dazzling white, while above, flashed a sky of the
+purest blue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In front of the hotel, the servant of the house was scraping
+a dark path with his shovel through the white carpet. Beside
+him stood Olga, her coat open, both hands plunged in its
+pockets, her head thrust somewhat forward in the intentness
+of her conversation with the old man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra gazed down for a while, delighting in every line of
+Olga’s figure. She watched her speak, seeming to hear the
+intonations of her voice. She wondered what she could find
+<a id="page-92" class="pagenum" title="92"></a>
+to talk about with the servant. She admired her talent for embarking
+on conversations with all kinds of people, and giving
+each just the proper tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra knew that talent of hers. If Olga were in the mood,
+she could make the grouchiest waiter or conductor beam at
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a few moments Olga suddenly glanced up: she must
+have felt Myra’s gaze. She saw her standing at the window,
+or perhaps only the trembling curtain. She waved and ran into
+the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga brought a breath of cool snowy air into the room. Her
+eyes were as clear and as transparent as ice, while a very faint
+rosy flush mantled her cheeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where have you been, you gad-about?” asked Myra.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have a nice long sleep, my wench?” Olga inquired by way
+of reply. “I’ve been walking. I was in town. I wanted to get
+some flowers for your breakfast table. But flowers in winter—such
+sinful things are unheard of here! But there’s a bake-shop
+below, one of those with steps and a railing in front of the
+door. You know the kind? And a gold pretzel up above! And
+it smells of fresh bread. Hurry up, I’ve got a ravening appetite.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They breakfasted in their room. Then Myra urged that they
+go walking. Snow and sunshine beckoned them out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“First you must write to your father,” said Olga seriously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Myra, making a face. “You don’t want to accept
+any responsibility—I know without your saying it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sat down and wrote a long, well-considered letter. She
+described the incidents at Uncle George’s with much humor.
+She told where she was stopping, earnestly begged her father
+to let her remain where she felt happy and was in no one’s
+way. She begged him, too, to believe that she was a mature and
+intelligent person and knew exactly what was best for her.
+And she begged him to pay back the money which she had
+<a id="page-93" class="pagenum" title="93"></a>
+unwillingly borrowed from Uncle George—and to support
+her for the short period until she came of age, or else to give
+her an advance against her grandmother’s legacy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But of the fact that she was not alone, she did not write him
+a word.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They took the letter together to be mailed. Olga already
+knew the way. When the letter had dropped into the blue box,
+she breathed more freely, and took Myra’s arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come,” she said, “what had to be done, is done. In three
+days you may get an answer. But let us enjoy those three days.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you suppose,” said Myra, glowering, “that any power on
+earth could compel me to return home? If they won’t send
+me money, I’ll hire out to do washing or sewing, or I’ll run up
+debts.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know,” said Olga, “I only know that as long as
+that letter is on its way we are safe. No living soul knows
+where we are—that’s a glorious feeling—as if one were safe
+behind walls and moats. But once that letter arrives, the drawbridge
+will be lowered. What will happen then, I do not know.
+I know nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing! But it’s always
+possible that we’ll be torn into little pieces!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then why did we lower the draw-bridge?” asked Myra,
+stopping short. “Why did you force me to write?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga smiled rather gloomily. “Because I will <em>not</em> accept responsibility!”
+she said, making an effort to jest.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+They walked along the broad streets with the little low
+houses. The show-windows were strangely fascinating.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As they entered the woods, it was suddenly still and warm
+about them—so warm that their faces, lashed by the wind,
+began to burn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the branches, high above them, the wind murmured,
+now and again shaking down a silvery star to the dark ground.
+But they did not feel the cold rush of its fall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-94" class="pagenum" title="94"></a>
+They wandered plunged in silence. Only when gay titmice
+flitted past, or a squirrel dashed up a tree trunk, did they indicate
+it to one another by a gesture, a whisper. And when
+their glances met, they remained fixed on one another till they
+smiled and closed their eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Aha, there it is!” said Olga at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What? Where?” asked Myra in surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga pointed ahead. A red brick wall was suddenly visible
+between the tree trunks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you know all the time where we were going?” Myra
+was filled with wonder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course, child! I would not lead you through here at random.
+By all human computations, this should be the wild-cat’s
+lair. In summer there’s coffee, music and dancing here. In
+winter we may get a bite to eat—if we’re lucky. The servant
+at the hotel told me all about it this morning. Such a lovely
+story about a haunted mill where there are only a donkey, a
+cat and a dove. And one other animal. Look, there goes the
+dove, and there’s the cat. But not a soul to be seen. Are you
+frightened, Myra? Wait and see, the cat will say something to
+us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They crossed a kind of inn courtyard and shook a couple of
+locked doors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They can’t have died,” said Olga, pointing to the wisp of
+smoke that arose from the chimney. “Or perhaps the cat
+made the fire. But if she can do that, she can also cook us something
+to eat.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They found one door open. Through a cold and empty hall,
+from the ceiling of which hung strips of torn and dusty paper,
+they reached another door that gave when they lifted the
+latch. The room they next entered was filled with a comfortable
+warmth and a penetrating smell of cabbage. An iron stove
+was giving off a glowing heat while on top a blue enamel pot
+was bubbling and steaming. At one of the tables a big-boned
+<a id="page-95" class="pagenum" title="95"></a>
+maid was sitting sprawled, eating her mess of cabbage with
+her knife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good day, Anna,” said Olga, beaming affably. “Well, how
+goes it? Does it taste good?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl rose slowly, grinning. “I’m not Anna,” she said.
+“The girl before me was Anna. I’m Bertha.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s lovely and warm in here, Bertha.” Olga drew off her
+gloves and spread her fingers before the fire. “And it smells
+wonderfully of cabbage! Will you give us a little of your
+lunch?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If the ladies would like something to eat, I’ll ask the mistress.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The black and white spotted cat stole into the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s the wild-cat!” said Olga. “Come here, Mies! Come
+to me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cat let her pick him up and hold him. Olga stroked
+him and pressed him to her while she talked to him in a whisper,
+asking sympathetic questions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Strange, that you like cats so much and can’t bear dogs,”
+said Myra a little disapprovingly. “It’s certainly typical of you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga raised her head quickly and her brows were lifted.
+“In what way is it typical?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Because you set more value on grace than on faithfulness,”
+said Myra with a melancholy smile. “Because you love what
+scratches you unexpectedly more than what lets itself be
+whipped and then licks your hand. I guess I’ll have to take
+care that you don’t grow to despise me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga pushed the cat off her lap. “No, Myra,” she said, her
+big eyes grave, “there you misunderstand me completely. I
+have an antipathy to dogs, not because they are faithful, but
+because they are shameless. Because they carry on their love
+affairs on the street.” Again that crimson flush overspread her
+features. “Cats are more cultured about such things—if I may
+use that much misused word. There are insects that mate only
+<a id="page-96" class="pagenum" title="96"></a>
+in the darkest nights, in the most forsaken corners, so that
+no forester has ever succeeded in observing them. I’ve always
+held that there will come a time when we will speak of the
+barbarous practices of this century, or the last ten centuries, as
+if they were a fairy-tale. Just think how tremendously funny
+it must strike any sensitive person when two people, having
+conceived a certain desire to go to bed with one another, set
+a special date for the event. They inform certain public institutions,
+the State, the Church. They tell their friends and
+relations, their own parents, their own brothers and sisters.
+On the day which is to end in that night, they gather everybody
+they know about them, let themselves be observed by
+persons who stuff themselves and drink until they are sick,
+listen to suggestive songs and suggestive speeches—and yet do
+not get sick themselves. I’ve always had a feeling that marriage
+as it is practiced today would be fit punishment for a hardened
+criminal. It is such a cruel, such an exquisite torture. Myra,
+my child, oblige me and if you ever decide to marry, do it
+when you desire and not on some appointed day. Do it in utter
+secrecy so that no living soul can suspect the possibility of such
+a thing....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I?” cried Myra, her eyes filled with the horror of a shattered
+dream. “I?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, you!” said Olga, smiling. “Ah, my child, do you fancy
+that you even begin to suspect all the things that can still happen
+in your life?”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The next day they went to see if there was a letter. Olga was
+relieved to find none.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This blessed postal service,” she said. “The mail comes here
+only once a day.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra shook her head. “I don’t understand you. I shan’t
+really be able to rest until the answer comes. Until then we’re
+always on the <span class="language" lang="la" xml:lang="la">qui vive</span>, sitting on a volcano or some such thing.
+<a id="page-97" class="pagenum" title="97"></a>
+Once we know where we’re at, then we can arrange matters.
+Eventually, I’ll have to write to the attorney who is my grandmother’s
+executor. He will surely advance me some money
+on which we can live for the six months until I’m of age. But
+I wish I were finished with all these things.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga played with the fringe of the table-cloth and smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why do you keep smiling?” asked Myra.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Because you make such elaborate plans. Your father will
+write, Come, and you will go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know very well that that is impossible,” said Myra almost
+angrily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga rose with a shrug of her shoulders and walked to the
+window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perhaps I will send you!” she said in a hard voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That afternoon they took another long walk across the
+fields. The early nightfall surprised them, and they did not
+reach the hotel until dark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They trudged along the highway, struggling hard against
+the wind, and saw the lights of the town beginning to twinkle
+in the blue dusk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Strange,” said Olga, “we’re going home. There is a town
+ahead of us whose name I had never heard of three days ago.
+And yet it is home to me. There is a hotel room in which some
+salesman may have slept three days ago, a room in which there
+is not a picture, not a book to attract me—and yet I call it
+home. When I think of our gas-heater and its reflection of the
+worn carpet, I feel so warm that I scarcely notice the wind.
+How happy a person must be who really has her own home,
+and loves each chair and the color of the carpet and the light
+of the lamp and each picture and each cup.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You could have that,” said Myra.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I? Never! Never! Never!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But you can!” Myra objected somewhat timidly, “if you
+have the patience—in six months.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-98" class="pagenum" title="98"></a>
+Olga laughed abruptly. “Child!” she cried and hugged
+Myra’s arm tighter. “My dear, sweet, wonderful little creature!
+In six months! Where will you be then, and where will I? You
+will be married perhaps, and I—dead.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+As they entered the room, something white was lying upon
+the dark table-cover. Myra seized it and ran to the window.
+The lantern outside shed a faint light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was an urgent telegram. “Turn on the light, please,”
+she asked in a rather shaky voice. She tore the message out of
+the envelope, and read it in the dusk by the window. She read
+it again by the bright gas light. It was no different:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your father has suffered a stroke. End expected hourly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without a word, Myra handed the open telegram to Olga,
+and walked past her to the heater. She held her hands in front
+of the flame, and was filled with the strangely painful sensation
+of not knowing how she ought to behave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For no feeling welled up irresistibly from the depths of her
+being, darkening every thought—neither grief nor fear, nor
+yet love. Only ugly, painful thoughts: “Now I’ll have to go
+away and arrive too late anyhow. So that it’s quite useless for
+me to go at all. If he really is going to die, why couldn’t I have
+just received word that he’s dead, instead? Then no power on
+earth could drag me away from here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She cast a stealthy glance at Olga whose back was still toward
+her. “She’ll wait for me to do something,” she thought.
+“I’ll have to say something or other. I suppose the most natural
+thing for me to do would be to cry. But I simply can’t. Of
+course, I think it’s dreadful. But it’s nothing to weep about.
+What would Olga do in my place? Strange, how little we
+actually know of one another! I don’t know what she would
+do. And I don’t know what she expects me to do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last Olga turned, laying the paper on the table with a
+<a id="page-99" class="pagenum" title="99"></a>
+beautiful and extraordinarily discreet gesture. Her face was
+calm, but very pale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll go ask about the trains,” she said and went out quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was glad to be left alone for a moment. She could now
+consider in quiet what was to be done. If Olga were going to
+inquire about the trains, she must accept it as a foregone conclusion
+that Myra would leave at once for home. And it probably
+was a foregone conclusion: of course, it was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She rose with a sigh from her easy-chair by the fire, opened
+her suitcase and began to pack. Meanwhile her thoughts kept
+flying hither and thither.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps it was not true!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps Aunt Emily had thought it up to lure her back
+home! To shut her up in prison!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If only a telegram would come from her father, denying the
+first.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Or supposing it were true, if only a telegram would come
+from Aunt Emily saying that all was over! Then she would not
+have to go. Or would Olga demand that she go?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If only Olga would come back now and say, “There is no
+train, not today, not tomorrow, not ever. The trains, are snow
+bound. Or there’s been a wash-out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Or if Olga would return and say, “Don’t go! Don’t leave
+me! Let us go somewhere else, anywhere they can’t find us.
+Prove to me how much you love me: give up everything for
+me! What is that strange dead man to you? Nothing! You
+belong to me, are mine! I demand of you that you remain
+with me. I don’t want to be parted from you, not for a single
+hour.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yes, that would be the most beautiful way, but of all impossible
+things, the most impossible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga opened the door. Her movements, though quick, were
+as gentle as if she were entering a sick-room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-100" class="pagenum" title="100"></a>
+“At nine forty-five,” she said and glanced at her wrist-watch.
+“So we have plenty of time to pack and eat a bite.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt a twinge of something like resentment. She <em>had
+to</em> go. She was simply being sent. Would Olga have gone in
+her place? Olga acted freely and flew in the face of everything
+that was considered convention. But Myra must be bound
+by what was normal, commonplace, proper. The train left at
+nine forty-five—she was not even asked if she wanted to take
+it. It was the next train, therefore she was to go on it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She continued to pack her suitcase, with a sullen expression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can I help you?” asked Olga gravely and gently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thanks, no!” said Myra curtly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga’s compassionate tone tormented her. She would have
+liked so much to speak the brutal truth: “You don’t need to
+treat me as if I were an invalid. The worst of this business for
+me is that we have to part, that I have to go away from here,
+that our fairy-tale life here must end.” But she did not possess
+the courage to say so. Yet she felt that Olga was withdrawing
+herself almost timidly, as if she had no right to disturb Myra
+in her sacred, childish grief.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In packing, Myra’s hand accidentally touched something
+carefully wrapped in tissue paper on the bottom of the suitcase.
+She tore off the wrapping, so that the shreds fluttered to
+the floor and held the gold cigarette-case in her hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Myra!” cried Olga with a soft exclamation of surprise.
+“There it is again! How long has it been there?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It has never been anywhere else,” said Myra with a rather
+strained smile. “I could never bring myself to give it into a
+stranger’s dirty hands. I really did not want to say anything
+about it to you. I intended to send it to you at Christmas. But
+that’s all silliness, I’d rather give it to you now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra walked over and placed it in Olga’s hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga held the case very quietly on her fingers without closing
+<a id="page-101" class="pagenum" title="101"></a>
+them over it while she regarded it with a profoundly
+thoughtful smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Strange,” she said without raising her eyes. “Why now?
+Why today? One must not be superstitious, but sometimes it is
+hard....”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+At home there was the odor of sickness and death. The
+maids sat about drunk with sleep, with swollen eyes and stupid
+faces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Everywhere there were lights burning. Not bright, cheerful,
+radiant lights, but individual lamps casting a faint glow
+in one or two rooms. The doors stood open or ajar so that one
+could see that it was not night in this house, that no one was
+sleeping, that people were constantly hurrying to and fro.
+And through the open doors, too, came the monotonous rattling
+in the throat of the dying man. It filled all the rooms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her owlish eyes wide open in her puckered face, Aunt
+Emily flitted about like a spook.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You come too late!” she said with icy triumph as she confronted
+Myra. “There is no more hope.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt as if something dreadful ought to happen to her,
+and the sudden consciousness of being so depraved, so unfeeling
+that nothing could happen to her, that even this woman’s
+immeasurable hate implied too high an opinion of her,
+brought the tears to her eyes, for she was tired and over-excited.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aunt Emily, of course, could not divine these thoughts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your tears are too late, too!” she said meanly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Each of the twenty hours that followed had a thousand minutes.
+Myra paced to and fro, or sat now in one chair, now in
+another. Everywhere she felt out of place, in the way, and
+observed by evil eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was worn out in every limb and felt the need, if only
+for an hour, to lock herself into her room and throw herself on
+her bed. But she lacked the courage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-102" class="pagenum" title="102"></a>
+She knew they expected her to stand flooding repentant
+tears or to sit by her father’s death bed, or better yet, to kneel.
+She endeavored to control the horror that from time to time
+shook her, and went in. The heavy air smelt of decomposition
+and medicines. Among the many white pillows lay a small,
+strangely bony skull with closed eyes, an alien, distorted
+mask, whose yellowish lips moved gently as it gasped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra sat for a while beside the bed, terrified lest that dreadful
+rattle in the throat should cease suddenly; terrified still
+more lest that strange something should suddenly open its
+eyes and begin speaking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Doctors entered, conferred in whispers, bestowed sympathetic
+glances on her, and went out again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The maid spread the table at the usual time and urged her
+to eat something. Aunt Emily left all the connecting-doors
+open, listening intently while she spooned her soup, for any
+change in that monotonously rattling throat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was all Myra could do to choke down a bite.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The twilight set in early and again the lamps were lit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra picked up a book, but encountered so furious a glance
+from Aunt Emily that she laid it down again, and folded
+her hands spiritlessly in her lap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Toward evening the rattlings grew feebler. The bridge of
+the nose stood out sharply against the tiny shrunken face.
+The doctor who came at night did not go away again. Now
+there was one more to sit in silence or pace noiselessly to and
+fro across the thick carpets—waiting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rattlings grew more and more feeble. Then a louder,
+grating expiration of the breath, twice, with short pauses.
+Then suddenly—silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And suddenly, too, as if it had just begun, they heard the
+ticking of every clock in the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The doctor bent over the bed, then drew himself up and
+<a id="page-103" class="pagenum" title="103"></a>
+walked over to Myra to give her his hand. Aunt Emily dabbed
+her dry eyes and the maids outside sobbed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra saw and heard it all as if through a dense veil; she was
+afraid of fainting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The doctor probably observed her greenish, livid appearance,
+and laid his hand on her hair. “Go lie down, my child,”
+he said gently. “You can be of no further use here. You have
+sad days behind you and before you. Youth needs sleep.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was glad to be in her room. But she did not think of
+lying down. When, after an interval, she heard the doctor go
+a nameless dread seized on her. She was so tired and yet so
+afraid to sleep lest horrible dreams torment her once she relaxed
+control of her thoughts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If her heavy eyelids shut for a moment, she saw the dying
+man’s distorted features, or Aunt Emily trying to seize her
+with her claws to strangle her, or Uncle George raising his
+arm to strike her with an enormous bunch of keys that would
+crush her aching head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra reached out longingly for another hand that would
+clasp hers warmly and firmly. But her cold fingers remained
+empty. Finally, she could not endure her terrors any longer.
+Slipping into her coat, she stole down the rear stairs and out of
+the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cold night air awoke her from her trance. She ran,
+rather than walked, through the streets to Olga’s house. The
+house was locked. Myra stood for a while undecided. Perhaps
+someone who lived there would be coming home late, or the
+watchman would unlock the door for her for a tip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She waited a long time. She was shivering with cold. At
+last she woke up the doorman. But at the top of the first stairs,
+she hesitated again before she dared ring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sat down on the steps and laid her forehead against the
+wooden door-jamb. She endeavored to awaken Olga, to summon
+<a id="page-104" class="pagenum" title="104"></a>
+her by thinking intensely of her, by ardent entreaty, by
+fierce willing. From time to time she thought she heard her
+light step approaching the door and she listened breathlessly,
+only to perceive that she was mistaken.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last she had to make up her mind to ring. It was a long
+time before a very sleepy, half-dressed girl opened the door.
+She told some tale of having just come from the train and of
+being unable to go home because she had left her key with
+Miss Radó. She laughed as she was saying it and had a feeling
+that the girl thought her positively demented.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She groped her way along the familiar hall, fearing, for
+some incomprehensible reason, to strike a light. Perhaps she
+was afraid that the noise or the illumination would wake someone,
+or perhaps she had some unconscious dread of being seen,
+and felt herself safer in the dark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As she stood in front of Olga’s door she felt suddenly, and
+with a painful intensity so strong that she thought it must be
+premonition, that Olga was not alone—that this horrible day
+was to have a still more horrible close.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She leaned against the wall, not daring to knock or to lift
+the latch. A voice, which she seemed to hear speaking distinctly
+outside her, said, “What are you seeking here? What right
+have you to force your way in here? Where did you acquire
+the boundless audacity to feel at home here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door opened noiselessly and a feeble ray of light appeared.
+In its glow stood Olga Radó, tall and slender in a varicolored
+dark kimono, one hand on the latch, peering sharply
+from under her knitted brows. She saw and recognized Myra
+at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Myra!” she exclaimed softly, and closed her eyes a moment
+as if frightened. “I knew it! What has happened, child?
+How did you get up here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra did not walk, she staggered. She went into the room,
+looking at the soft light of the shaded lamp on the papers, on
+<a id="page-105" class="pagenum" title="105"></a>
+the desk, on the backs of the books, on the silk cushions. Colors
+and shapes were a marvellous exhilaration. She let herself slide
+to the floor, laying her head against the easy-chair, and saying
+between tears and a laugh, between waking and sleeping,
+“Let me stay here, it is so good!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga raised her, undressed her like a little child and laid
+her in the bed. As the cold sheets touched her body, horror set
+her trembling again. Once more she was wide awake, and sat
+bolt upright in the bed, striving to control the chattering of her
+teeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Lie beside me,” she pleaded, “I must feel that I’m not alone.
+I’m so dreadfully frightened.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga did not answer. She bolted the door, she set the lamp
+behind the bed, spread another silken veil over the light and
+let the kimono fall from her shoulders—all with a sad smile
+and slow, languid movements as if she were preparing for a
+sacrifice. Then she put her arm under Myra’s neck, tucked
+the coverlet more tightly around her and stroked the tangled
+hair from her forehead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And as Myra felt the warmth of that beloved life, the strong
+pulse of that heart, she began to weep, quietly, released from
+pain. She cried herself to sleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After an interval, she did not know if it were hours or minutes,
+she awoke again. The light was still burning. Olga lay
+motionless beside her, her eyes wide open. Myra sat up and
+released her arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why didn’t you wake me?” she said reproachfully. “Poor
+thing, I must have broken your arm, that’s why you can’t
+sleep.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga turned her head a little. “I should not have slept anyway.
+I’m so wide awake.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What were you thinking of?” asked Myra, trying to fathom
+her eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga smiled a little wearily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-106" class="pagenum" title="106"></a>
+“I was thinking that your people are probably searching
+the whole house by now. I should like to know, or better, I’d
+rather not know, what is going on in Aunt Emily’s head at
+this moment. She certainly must think you’ve been bitten by
+a tarantula!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra laughed softly and put her arm around Olga.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“By a scorpion!” she said tenderly. “There is no antidote but
+its own poison. You know that very well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga sat up and clasped her hands about her knees. Her
+glossy black curls fell luxuriantly about her shoulders. Her
+eyes gazed straight ahead and her wide pupils darkened the
+irises.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What a strange fate!” she said in a vibrant tone as soft and
+deep as a cello’s. “That I must be stung by the scorpion and
+yet look for healing to the same creature.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her pale beautiful features assumed an expression of fierce,
+of sorrowful, of almost weird energy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was so terrified that her heart seemed to miss a beat.
+She did not have the courage to touch Olga, to embrace her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Olga!” she cried, in fear and pain, and stretched out her
+hands to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again that troubled smile played about those pale lips. Olga
+threw both her arms around Myra and clasped her to her as if
+her embrace must smother, must annihilate, must destroy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, little Myra!” she said with a little explosive laugh, “it’s
+all no good! You’ll have to let me take the easy road first, then
+perhaps, everything will be all right.”
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-9">
+<a id="page-107" class="pagenum" title="107"></a>
+IX
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+In her sleep Myra heard a violent ringing. Then she woke
+up: doors were slamming, steps approaching, there were many
+excited voices.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She opened her eyes and saw Olga standing beside the bed,
+already fully dressed. She was very pale, her eyes dark and
+blazing. “Get up, Myra,” she commanded in a voice that was
+breathless with excitement, “get up for God’s sake and dress!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra threw on her things in mad haste. Meanwhile they
+were pounding on the door. Olga immediately went over to
+it, unbolted and opened it a crack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who is there?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Loud excited voices in the hall: excited faces trying to force
+themselves through the crack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m sorry, I can’t permit you in my room at this moment,”
+Olga said with icy courtesy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some voices began to shout louder than the others, Aunt
+Emily and Uncle George. Also the girl who had admitted Myra
+that night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra’s hands were trembling as in a nightmare. She could
+not button her dress. She was aware only of a dreadful desire
+to be invisible or to jump out of the window or to sink into
+some vast unconsciousness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga’s voice rose above the clamor, deep and calm, but as
+cold and sharp as polished steel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Does this conversation have to take place in the hall?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then suddenly, a soft, gentle voice: “May I offer the use of
+my room. I’ll be glad to step out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-108" class="pagenum" title="108"></a>
+The voices withdrew next door and a few moments later—Myra
+had thrown on her dress—Peterkin stole into the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can I help you, Myra?” he whispered. His eyes were troubled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same moment, there came a sound from next door as
+if a stick had been smashed across a table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll have you thrown into jail!” thundered Uncle George.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra wanted to rush in, but Peterkin restrained her, imploring
+her not to go. “Don’t, don’t!” he begged. “Fix your
+hair quickly! Put on your shoes!” While she smoothed her
+hair, he knelt before her and buttoned her shoes. She let him.
+She could not dash next door in her stocking-feet, with her
+hair unkempt, to the immense pleasure of all the people peeping
+through the cracks in their doors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Myra did go down the hall to the next room, she was
+quite calm, quite erect, and sustained by a strong, brave, hot
+and almost joyous determination.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the bottom of the hall stood a strange man with his hat
+and overcoat on. He looked her over with a piercing glance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Straight from her father’s dead body!” whimpered Aunt
+Emily with high pathos.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The criminal police in a decent house!” screamed Frau
+Flesch. “Never in all my life have I had anything to do with
+the police!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra pressed down hard on the latch. Her pulse was throbbing
+in her neck. For an instant the thought flashed through
+her mind: Perhaps it was best that this happened. Perhaps it
+was a good thing that she must now have the courage to take
+her place beside Olga and say, “I belong to her and will never
+leave her, even if you tear her and me into little pieces! If you
+have the courage and the right, use force on me, for I’ll never
+go one step with you of my own free will.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga was standing, leaning against the table, her arms
+crossed on her breast, the fingers clasping her elbows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-109" class="pagenum" title="109"></a>
+As Myra opened the door, Aunt Emily rushed to her with
+a choking cry, “Here is the unfortunate child!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra stood for an instant as though numbed. For a moment
+she felt as if she were among lunatics or had gone mad herself.
+With a hasty glance, she thought how very becoming to
+Uncle George were his stern manner, his steel-blue eyes and
+his iron-gray mustache against a face crimson with rage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He came up to her and said in a deep, rough voice that trembled
+with something like emotion, “Myra, my child, what are
+you doing here? We’re burying your poor father tomorrow
+and you’re here!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He laid his heavy hand on her shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra did not look at him. She was looking at Olga.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This is my home,” she said. She meant her voice to sound
+vibrant and firm, but she could not manage it, and it sounded
+soft and tremulous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you think you have the right, go ahead and use force on
+me, for I’ll never go one step with you of my own free will.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was hard, very hard, to say that. Very hard to say it under
+Uncle George’s honest gaze while his face was distorted with
+rage and sorrow, under Aunt Emily’s little blinking bird-eyes,
+or Frau Flesch’s spongy face that seemed fixed in a repulsively
+avid grin. Hard to say it in front of the strange man and the
+maid, who were listening in the hall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But now it was said. And now everything would be all
+right. Now Olga would come and take her in her arms, would
+press Myra’s head against her breast so that she need not hear
+or see anything more, would, with one of her haughty and
+imperious gestures, show all these strange and horrible faces
+the door, would point her revolver at these intruders and drive
+them out with a single word....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga turned her head without changing her position, and
+looked at Myra. Everybody thought she was looking at Myra
+and gave an involuntary start.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-110" class="pagenum" title="110"></a>
+But actually her eyes were merely resting on Myra’s forehead,
+eyebrows and hair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra strove to intercept her gaze, but could not. It was fixed
+on her forehead, her eyebrows, her hair—on a line above her
+eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My dear child,” said Olga with a gentleness that was icy-cold,
+“your sense of dependence on me is touching, but I have
+done nothing to merit it. If you feel about me as you say, you
+ought to go with your relatives, behave like a rational creature
+and spare me your visits in the future. You must see that they
+occasion me nothing but unpleasantness!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra hesitated for a moment. “Something must happen,”
+she thought, “she must look at me, she must give me some
+sign, a glance, a gesture, that this is all comedy, that I must
+trust her, believe in her, wait for an explanation....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But nothing did happen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra racked her brain for something terrible with which to
+shatter that stony mask. Could she not say, “You made me
+come, lured me, forced me and now you deny me”? No, she
+had no right to do that. But could she not think of some abusive
+word, something that would pierce, would wound, something
+cruel?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She turned over various silly childish epithets in her mind:
+they were as heavy as blocks of stone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Canaille!” she thought. “Harlot!” That was not what she
+was seeking. It seemed to her as if she must shove the blocks
+of stone this way and that in feverish search for the one sharp
+word she must fling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly, she felt as if she had stood there an endless time,
+with arms hanging, and vacant eyes and open mouth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She drew herself up and attempted a smile that would be at
+once proud and affable. But she felt as she was doing it, as if
+madness were twitching the distorted muscles of her face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-111" class="pagenum" title="111"></a>
+“Will you telephone for a taxi, Uncle George?” she said. “I
+am too tired to walk.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went to the door. “I just want to gather up my things.
+I won’t be a moment.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went into the next room, put on her hat before the mirror
+very carefully, threw on her coat and looked for her bag. She
+did not hurry at all. She still had some mad feeling that Olga
+must steal in and whisper something to her—where they could
+meet, where she should write, when she could explain it all to
+her. But no Olga came.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Myra opened her bag, she noticed a little wad of tightly
+pressed bills.—What was left from their trip. She took them
+out, laughing bitterly. Probably she would no longer be in any
+way tempted to steal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Probably she would never again need money as long as she
+lived.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She raised her hand and opened it, letting the bills flutter
+down on the disordered bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she went out, past the strange man, past the maid,
+downstairs and out of the house, without once looking back.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+In the street she got into the taxi with her relatives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Uncle George remained for a while in the city. His behavior
+was really curious. He was quiet and kind, and always fixed
+upon Myra a pair of honest, anxious blue eyes, and always
+spoke to her in a slightly emotional tone. But there was never
+a word about the money or her flight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Myra pondered this behavior—she did not do so very
+often—she found only one explanation for it. She did not
+think it might be remorse because his vehement letter had
+occasioned her unhappy father’s death. Nor did it ever occur
+to her that he was striving to win her affection through love
+and kindness. No, probably she was a source of irritation to
+<a id="page-112" class="pagenum" title="112"></a>
+him. But he had seen Olga Radó. Had heard her voice. Had experienced
+something of her power. When Myra thought of that,
+she almost loved him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had heard how Olga denied, betrayed and humiliated
+her. And he sympathized with her. When Myra thought of
+that, she hated him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even Aunt Emily was singularly gentle. Myra thought later
+that it would have been better if they had tormented and
+wounded her at that time, and thereby made her strong
+through steely hate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aunt Emily and the entire family were all for expressing the
+depth of one’s grief by the length of one’s veil. Nobody was going
+to say that Myra, the depraved daughter, the unruly offspring,
+did not mourn her father’s death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first time Myra saw herself in a mirror, black crêpe from
+head to toe, slender and pale, with lifeless eyes and a mouth
+distorted with grief, she thought, “Like a widow!” Her heart
+contracted painfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they drove to the interment, they sat side by side. Aunt
+Emily’s black-gloved right hand held a white handkerchief to
+her quivering lips; her left held Myra’s hand. And Uncle
+George stared out the window while from time to time a tear
+rolled from his blue eye and into his mustache.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt as if she had been a mountain: her stony invulnerability
+had turned aside every shot. But now an explosion
+had torn a crater in her. She was hollow inside, a deep, dark,
+precipitous chasm. The savage wound lay exposed to view, and
+everything fell into it without let or hindrance, lay in her like
+heavy stones, tortured her—everything, glances, words, tears,
+gestures.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Woe to those who have torn me asunder!” she thought
+bitterly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then her fingers clasped Aunt Emily’s a little tighter for a
+moment. “We belong together,” she thought. “Forsaken, loveless,
+<a id="page-113" class="pagenum" title="113"></a>
+unhappy people who have grown hard and bitter—we
+belong together. There are two great families in this world—the
+rich and the poor, the sound and the sick, the laughers and
+the weepers.... Olga Radó belongs among the happy: she
+has triumphed, she has justified herself, she has rid herself of
+me—now she can go, laughing, to the next adventure.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra did not always think such thoughts. She was a prey
+to the most conflicting feelings. There were sleepless nights
+when she thought that everything would be all right if only she
+could hold Olga’s hand and ask, “How did you come to do it,
+child? How could such a thing happen? What were you thinking
+of at the time?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next day she would pace up and down Motz Street and
+stare at the house across the way—but always in vain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then there were days when Aunt Emily displayed a loathsomely
+friendly sympathy and let fall insinuations concerning
+the ingratitude of the world in general and in particular, and
+how lonely Myra now was because she had given all her affection
+to such a person.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Myra hated them both—Aunt Emily and Olga—with
+a terrible hatred. But she hated Olga the more—Olga who had
+thrown her down where Aunt Emily could trample her, Olga
+who had torn that wound which Aunt Emily’s foul fingers
+could probe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes she resolved to die, but more often to flee, to pack
+up a bundle and run down the highroad, to pass the night in
+meadows and hollows with nothing over her but the eternal
+starry skies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At other times, it seemed to her as if that sort of life, particularly
+that sort of life, would be merely a constant torment without
+Olga—but a treasure without end, an inconceivable happiness
+if only Olga were there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She strove to reconcile herself to the thought that Olga no
+longer loved her. But it was impossible that she actually hated
+<a id="page-114" class="pagenum" title="114"></a>
+her. She had simply sacrificed her, surrendered her without
+second thought in order to shield her reputation, in order to
+protect herself from unpleasantnesses. It is true, she did not
+love her. That was why her words had been lies. She had simply
+been glad when Myra came. Always. And she would be glad
+again if she returned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was becoming clearer and clearer to Myra every day how
+rich she was. Franz Rudloff had been no miser, but there was
+nothing for which he really cared to spend money. And Aunt
+Emily was much too much of a model not to economize, even
+in the pettiest ways.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra had no very clear understanding of money or the
+value of money. But she knew that the sums mentioned to her,
+guaranteed her freedom, promised her that in a few months
+she could live her life where she wished and as she wished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A life without Olga?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra finally resolved to write to Olga. Not how she felt,
+nothing about her longing, her love—God forbid! But a line or
+two, quite businesslike, if one might use the expression—lines
+whose purpose would simply be to bring about an explanation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With much effort she composed a letter which she amended
+and improved and copied; she felt quite satisfied with her
+handiwork. No one could find in it a trace of affection or humility
+of any kind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rather it was sharp, ironic and somewhat challenging in
+tone. She mailed the letter and awaited the answer. None came.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Meanwhile Aunt Emily decided to inform Myra of the
+“facts of life.” To be sure, she chose a rather remarkable
+method.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aunt Emily was too much of a model to discuss morally offensive
+matters with a young girl. Besides, she was probably
+afraid of Myra’s outbursts of temper, though otherwise she was
+not cowardly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-115" class="pagenum" title="115"></a>
+Myra had fallen into the habit of sitting in her father’s study.
+She would sit and read the whole day through, the most difficult
+and abstruse things, simply in order not to think. Here
+she had all the books within reach. It was more convenient
+to sit down at the writing-table with them, than to lug the
+sometimes heavy folios into another room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On his desk she now found from time to time pamphlets,
+brochures, apparently of a quite varied character, novels, medical
+works, daily papers with passages underlined—but all
+treating of one theme.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were strange and weird stories of countesses who
+dressed in men’s attire and frequented various dives until they
+were lured into a trap and brutally murdered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Or accounts of sickening orgies in well-known clubs where
+hundreds of women dressed and disported themselves like men,
+and men were dolled up with false curls with open-work silk
+stockings, and with their bare arms and shoulders powdered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were statistics showing all the unfortunates who fell
+victim to softening of the brain, lunacy, tuberculosis of the
+spine and other diseases as a result of unnatural practices.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Or descriptions of the soul life of sexual inverts which led one
+to suppose that these thousands of human beings constituted
+a vast community, a community bound together by no ties of
+common interest, no similarity of education, origin, taste or attitude
+toward life, and never by love, but by a common lust for
+a common form of excess.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was the biography of a famous man who was miserably
+murdered by a blackmailing waiter with whom he had
+had intimate relations—whom he had <em>loved</em>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra shuddered when she thought of the word love in
+this connection. Sometimes it seemed to her as if she would be
+stifled by so much filth. She became physically ill simply from
+touching the books. Then she would not read them—for quite
+a while. She would read historical, philosophic and scientific
+<a id="page-116" class="pagenum" title="116"></a>
+works. But there were long periods when she was not conscious
+what she was reading. Her eyes ran along the lines and reflected
+the words. But her thoughts struggled with the dreadful things
+that had been flung at her, like blocks of stone, to kill her. Then
+she would pick up the other books again, the bad ones, and
+look for enlightenment and draw conclusions and make comparisons.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whenever masculine women were discussed, mention was
+made of their superior intelligence, their thirst for knowledge
+and their desire for culture, coupled with an abnormal tendency
+to spendthriftness, a passionate desire for luxury, and an unnatural
+predilection for beautiful foot-gear. Mention was made,
+too, of weird Don Juan natures who passed with insatiable lust
+from one adventure to another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As a result of such readings, Myra was left in the most dreadful
+bewilderment. These books should have taught her to understand
+the person who, of all others, had been closest to her.
+She had said to herself a hundred times in the past months,
+“This woman is a riddle that cannot be guessed, a mystery that
+cannot be solved, forever strange and remote, not to be grasped
+or comprehended. And each time she had felt with every fibre
+of her being, ‘such and such is the solution; now everything is
+clear, everything is all right, nothing can ever arise to divide us
+again.’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But now, now?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now Myra felt an anguished need to pack up these books
+and take them to Olga Radó! “Tell me, are there such people?
+Are you one of them? Am I? What do you know about it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga had had to express an opinion about everything that
+Myra had heard or read in the last year. And Olga’s opinion
+had nearly always been Myra’s, or had aroused, strengthened,
+clarified another opinion in her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, for the first time, she had to settle such monstrous
+<a id="page-117" class="pagenum" title="117"></a>
+matters single-handed and she groped about blindly in the
+dark. Where she thought to find a light, a way out, she merely
+strayed deeper into the maze. She could neither make headway
+nor go back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So Myra wrote a second letter. This time, too, there was not a
+word about love or longing—simply an urgent appeal for help,
+a good deal of complaining about what was happening inside
+her and a certain reproachfulness: you have brought me so far,
+you must take my hand and lead me out of this swamp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No answer came.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spring came, however. Warm, caressing winds came, and
+broad flashing rays of sunlight and a veil of buds shrouding
+every branch, and snow-bells and crocuses, forcing their way
+with difficulty through dark purple, rotting leaves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra could not bear the heavy, soft air. She could not sleep
+and suffered from headaches day and night. Reading no longer
+sufficed to distract her mind. She sat bowed over her books and
+stared out the window. The same page would lie in front of her
+for hours without her ever turning it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She began to read novels. She could not forget she was reading
+them as easily as she could dry scientific works because
+they stirred her imagination and evoked certain pictures.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But those pictures were a torture to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were always people in love with one another. They
+struggled with one another, discovered one another, came together
+or parted, destroyed one another, died or abandoned one
+another. It hurt her to read of love.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She read of riches, of luxury, of automobiles dashing along
+highways, of white hotels beside blue waters, of balls and banquets
+and yachts and journeys by sledge. Then she would begin
+to calculate her fortune and think, “Olga Radó could have led
+just such a life if she had remained with me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cherries blossomed. Olga Radó was no doubt going by
+<a id="page-118" class="pagenum" title="118"></a>
+steamer with some lovely woman, over the blue waters of the
+Havel. And all about her was a world of beauty and sunshine
+and light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was seized with a mad desire to be where Olga was, to
+lead Olga’s life. Pride dropped away from her like a burned rag.
+She stood naked to herself and cried out with the pain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She wrote her third letter to Olga Radó. She wrote that she
+could no longer live and breathe without her. That she wanted
+nothing from her, not love, or affection or friendship. That
+she wanted nothing but to serve her with all her strength, and
+in payment she would let herself be beaten and kicked. That
+she would feel no jealousy, no craving, no lust of possession.
+That she would serve anyone, man or woman, whom Olga
+loved, and that she would chain and immure her love so deep
+within her that never, never, never would anyone suspect its
+existence, not even Olga.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again she waited for an answer. Again none came.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly it occurred to her that Olga might not have received
+her letters, certainly had not received them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went to Motz Street and every step made her feel as if she
+were walking on red hot coals. The same maid answered her
+ring who had admitted her that night. Myra could not bring
+herself to utter Olga’s name, so she asked for Peterkin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had moved—address unknown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She lived through ten more days of torture. Then she went
+again. A new maid opened the door. “I’m in luck,” thought
+Myra and she was dizzied for a moment as the idea flashed
+through her mind that the next instant she might be standing
+face to face with Olga in her room. What might happen afterwards
+was of no moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Radó had moved—address unknown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra went to the bureau of registry. She filled out the prescribed
+blank and gave it to the gray-haired official while her
+heart throbbed wildly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-119" class="pagenum" title="119"></a>
+The friendly old gentleman rose, went searching, returned
+and asked if the lady lived in her own house. No? Unfortunately,
+they did not register people who lived in lodging-houses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Myra made her last and most difficult attempt. She
+went to the Moebiuses. The girls grinned in her face, impudently,
+when she asked about Olga Radó.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No, they didn’t know anything about her. Naturally, she
+had not put in her appearance here again, and father would
+probably have very politely given her the air if she had. But
+they would be <em>delighted</em> to find things out. Ablaze with curiosity
+and pruriency, they began to ply her with questions,
+whether it was true that....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra blushed and paled, turned hot and cold. She might
+have murdered one of them if she had not been so tired. “I
+don’t know,” she said. She answered all their questions with “I
+don’t know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps she should have become indignant and defended
+Olga Radó. Perhaps she should have let them slander her and
+have made all kinds of mysterious insinuations. Perhaps she
+should have laughed and led the girls a merry chase. She supported
+herself against her chair with both hands, and said, “I
+don’t know!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As she left the house she realized that she would never enter
+it again. A senseless expression kept running through her mind
+as in a delirium—“To be on everybody’s tongue....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It had never before had any meaning for her. Now she felt,
+actually in a physical way, as if she had been chewed over and
+spat out on the sidewalk. She shuddered with nausea.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+From time to time, but at ever shorter intervals, a dull racking
+hatred began to tarnish the surface of her feeling for Olga
+Radó. That woman was to blame for all that she was now suffering—heedlessly,
+cold-heartedly and quite unscrupulously to
+blame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-120" class="pagenum" title="120"></a>
+During this period, Myra was very unjust to Olga Radó. For
+it seemed to her as if she had been torn by her from a happy
+shielded youth, as if a profound and placid peace had been
+destroyed in her, some marvellous equilibrium shattered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The be-all and end-all of her desire seemed to her to be a return
+to what she had once been. Her one wish was to strike the
+last year out of her life, to expunge, to forget it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she would take up those evil books again and deliberately
+read the things which had most nauseated her. She thus
+artificially intensified her hate and anger and fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were days when she said to herself, “At last I am free!
+It’s as if I had recovered from a severe illness; I feel that my
+blood is pure again. From now on I shall live as other people
+do, without pain and without joy, without desire and without
+fulfillment.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And there were nights when she felt as if a burning poison
+were eating at her veins, when fear of an unutterly horrible future
+made her shudder. Nights when she felt she must succumb
+to her unbridled appetites, must give herself unresistingly to
+every loose woman who for criminal reasons chose to arouse
+her passion. She saw herself victimized by blackmailers,
+tracked by the police, sick, insane, in prison or murdered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In one such period of abysmal despair she permitted herself
+to become engaged. Some decent, solid man or other came
+courting her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She knew nothing about him. She did not know when or
+where she had seen him for the first time, knew hardly anything
+of his character or his inclinations. She simply became
+aware one day that for some time there had been some person
+around her who had made an effort to be kind to her. Someone
+who helped her on most carefully with her coat, stooped
+when she dropped something, brought her flowers, and tried
+to tell her cheerful stories in order to brighten her face a little.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man knew as agreeably little about her. In his presence
+<a id="page-121" class="pagenum" title="121"></a>
+Aunt Emily bubbled over with gentle, motherly solicitude. She
+could just as well have made biting observations or cutting innuendoes
+about him, but he fitted into her program.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pitied Myra tremendously because she was an orphan.
+He ascribed all the suffering in her pale face to grief for her
+father. Sometimes he ventured to take her cold fingers in both
+his hands and gently stroke them. At such moments Myra
+would close her eyes and scrutinize her feelings in terror.
+Warmth and peace flowed from his big strong hands. His gentle
+tenderness was pleasant rather than abhorrent. Then Myra
+would say to herself with a burst of hope, “Perhaps everything
+will be all right, after all. Perhaps I shall have somebody near
+who is good to me, I’ll have children and a home, I’ll always
+have something to do—perhaps it is still possible for a life like
+that to be bearable.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She felt, too, an irrepressible desire for revenge. It might
+wound Olga Radó’s vanity somewhat, if she learned how
+quickly she had been forgotten.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man was rich. That suited Aunt Emily and incidentally
+suited Myra. She pictured herself in the loge at the opera,
+flashing with jewels, beside this man, a very attractive and
+stately man—it would never occur to anyone that she had not
+married him for love—and suddenly Olga Radó would appear
+from somewhere. Or she saw herself driving past Olga Radó
+in a de luxe car. Or best of all, she saw them meeting when she
+was walking with her fair-haired children dressed neatly in
+white. Then she would draw the children away from Olga as if
+from a venomous snake. That was the way, yes, indeed, that
+was the way to wound Olga most cruelly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the man was persistent, Myra said yes. She had had sufficient
+time to accustom herself and took good care that it appeared
+in various newspapers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On her twenty-first birthday, there was a little garden party
+at the villa of her parents-in-law. It was a very hot day in summer,
+<a id="page-122" class="pagenum" title="122"></a>
+the nineteenth of June, and on Aunt Emily’s advice,
+Myra again put on a white dress trimmed with black.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As she strolled past a mirror in that strange house with all the
+strange people about her, she did not recognize herself. She was
+shocked and could not rid herself of the idea that she was not
+the pretty girl dressed in white, who smiled at her from the mirror,
+on the arm of that strange man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She tried to find herself and could not imagine where she
+could be. But it seemed to her as if she saw herself, thin and
+dark, like a specter, wandering through great, dark, empty
+rooms. Again, it seemed to her as if she really was the reflection
+in the glass, and that that other Myra, who was so identically
+like her, was the stranger. Dream and reality began to merge
+inextricably; all her nerves seemed to thrill like snapped
+chords. In mortal fear she longed for complete unconsciousness
+or for sudden complete clarity, feeling as if she were blinded
+by fog or a prey to vertigo. A moment later, she could not understand
+exactly what had happened to her, or give any answer
+to her fiancé who anxiously inquired the cause of her paleness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the singular feeling persisted all evening that all this was
+simply a dream, a game. The whole business of the engagement
+was simply a joke, a comedy. Each moment might step
+forward like a stage-manager and cry, “Enough! Let reality
+resume!”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+On the twentieth of June, in the morning, Myra was called
+to the telephone. A light masculine voice spoke from the receiver,
+curiously restrained and hesitant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is this Miss Rudloff herself? Myra, is that you? Forgive me
+for disturbing you—I wanted to speak to you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt her heart tear itself loose and plunge into an unfathomable
+dark abyss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Peterkin?” she said and tried to suppress her smile without
+<a id="page-123" class="pagenum" title="123"></a>
+stopping to think that no one could see her face. Nor could anyone
+have heard that smile in the trembling of her voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“May I speak with you, Myra? I mean....” Again that
+timid hesitation in his voice. “If you care to, you understand.
+Of course, I don’t know how interested you are in your old
+friends now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It goes without saying,” said Myra firmly, “that you can see
+me any time, where and when you wish.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She did not ask what had happened. She did not want to ask.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It can’t come very well.” Again that timid tone. “And I’d
+rather not go on the street ... or to a coffee-house.... It
+really wouldn’t do....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll come to you,” said Myra quickly. “Tell me where you
+live!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes—but—is that all right either? Particularly—if anything
+unpleasant should happen.... You’re engaged....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nonsense!” said Myra roughly.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+As she hurried down the street she did not try to picture what
+might actually have happened. She did not want to. “Perhaps
+Olga is sick and wants to see me,” she thought. “Perhaps she
+doesn’t know anything about it, and Peterkin simply called me
+of his own accord.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She simply thought that she would see Olga, that she would
+take her hand. At the same time she thought, “I tell myself
+these things as we tell a feverish child stories, I paint them in
+the brightest colors, and believe them no more than we believe
+in fairies and sorcerers.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it was better to tell herself stories, better to sing herself
+cradle-songs, than to listen to the voice that cried the truth deep
+within her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was strange how, without a moment’s hesitation, she found
+the house and the street as if she had been there a hundred
+times.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-124" class="pagenum" title="124"></a>
+When she rang, Peterkin was already at the door. That
+spared her any interrogation. And she felt, looking at the maid,
+the first human face she noticed, that she was in no condition
+to answer questions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peterkin took Myra by the hand and, without a word, led her
+past the astonished maid and into his room. He shut the door,
+and without looking at her, said, “Sit down, Myra.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first thing that Myra noticed in the room was the gold
+cigarette case on the black surface of the table. A ray of sunlight
+was flashing on it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She made an effort to restrain herself. It was as if she tugged
+at the reins with both hands in order to check herself. But when
+Peterkin turned to her, and she saw how his hands, how his
+small white face quivered, with what an effort he was struggling
+for control—she lost control herself. She began to cry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Cry, cry,” he said at last, his chin quivering, while the tears
+started from his eyes. “Cry, for she was worthy of tears, you can
+believe me....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Believe you?” said Myra with heart-rending bitterness. She
+laid the handkerchief over her eyes and supported her head in
+her hand. Her other hand stroked his nervously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now tell me everything, Peterkin. You see that I’m quite
+calm again, quite, quite calm. When did it happen? How?
+And why? Tell me everything, everything you know!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I could not tell you, Myra—not before your twenty-first
+birthday. That was yesterday, wasn’t it? I’ve marked it here on
+the calendar—for another reason—I’ll have to tell you all about
+that, too. I had a message to deliver to you. But of course, I had
+no suspicion—sometimes it is as if we were struck blind....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra glanced up for a moment. “Did she do it herself?”
+There was nothing interrogatory in her tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did she shoot herself?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-125" class="pagenum" title="125"></a>
+She covered her eyes again with her handkerchief.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go on.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She was sick during the spring, a light case of influenza.
+She had some fever and I used to sit beside the bed while she
+talked of death and burial, quite cheerfully and unconcernedly,
+as she always did. You know very well that nobody ever knew
+whether she was jesting or in earnest. She said to me at that
+time, ‘If I die now, Peterkin, take good care to keep it quiet.
+Don’t let it get into any of the papers, and don’t let anybody
+know about it, not even Myra. I’d like to strew my ashes on
+the sea or at least on the Wannsee. But the State won’t permit
+that, I believe. So simply make haste and have my remains
+cremated. I will have no traffic with my corpse. I won’t be inside
+it, you can be sure of that. Not for one moment longer than
+necessary will I remain inside my corpse.’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To Myra it seemed as if she were hearing Olga speak. So
+clearly did she hear her voice, that her heart was filled with an
+inner joy and she smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I smiled, too, at the time,” said Peterkin sorrowfully. “But
+she became quite serious and sat up and looked at me. You
+know how she could look at one out of her intense eyes. ‘It is
+my sacred wish,’ she said. ‘Promise me you’ll do it, give me
+your word of honor!’ I promised her, but I said, ‘You’re crazy,
+in three days you’ll be well again.’ And she was well again in
+three days.” He stopped. Somewhere a clock was ticking and
+flies were buzzing against the window-pane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Something filled Myra with a few moments of joy and tranquillity.
+An obscure feeling—how good that Olga was well
+again in three days. There was so much vigorous life in that
+beautiful body.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the present struck at her heart like a clenched fist. And
+now? And now? She had to wait a few moments before she
+could bring herself to utter the terrible word.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-126" class="pagenum" title="126"></a>
+“Did you bury her at once?” she asked in a very low voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She was cremated. The urn was sent to Vienna. Her sister
+lives there....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did she live here toward the end?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Two doors away, around the corner.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And it happened there?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can one ...” Myra swallowed hard, “can one see the
+room?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peterkin shrugged his shoulders slowly. “What is the use?
+Everything is changed. Nothing of hers is left. It has been
+rented again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had a peculiar feeling; it seemed to her as a curiously
+happy fact that every pattern which this spirit had created was
+now destroyed. There was not even a room left in the world
+which those hands, that mind, had arranged, and in which a
+trace of her being might have survived. Half unconsciously,
+Myra felt as if the shifting of a few pieces of furniture had
+broken the stones from a prison wall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now Olga Radó was wholly free.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A gentle breeze stirred the curtains at the open window. A
+sweet, cool breeze blew over Myra’s burning eyes. She smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is best that way!” she said again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly she understood that Olga had not received her letters.
+There was no need to inquire about it. But Peterkin was
+the only person of whose opinion she was a little afraid. She felt
+that she must justify herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wrote Olga three times!” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I had an idea that you did,” said Peterkin with a gloomy
+smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She never received a line.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But you knew it anyway?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course. We talked often enough about you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While Peterkin was speaking, Myra had a curious feeling
+<a id="page-127" class="pagenum" title="127"></a>
+that she was living over in a few minutes and with the most
+powerful intensity, the last six months of her life. It seemed to
+her as if on that unhappy morning the woof-thread had been
+broken and day by day had labored at a make-shift pattern
+that was false. Now that false woof had suddenly been unravelled
+as the shuttle plied backwards like lightning. The thread
+was knotted where it had been broken and the true pattern was
+resumed, a little curtailed, perhaps, a little fainter in color, but
+there it was, woven for the present and for all days to come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What did you say about me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, a great many things. I urged her so often to write to
+you, to establish some sort of contact with you. But she was
+convinced that she must not do it. Sometimes I thought I
+would telephone you, or I’d waylay you somewhere against her
+will. Once I suggested it to her. She glared at me out of her big
+eyes. ‘If you ever do any such thing,’ she said, ‘our friendship is
+over with for all time! Do you want to destroy the poor child?’
+She was always of the opinion that you were happy and that
+things were going well with you. But I was sure you must divine
+what was going on. I tried so hard, you’ll never know how
+hard. Once I promenaded under your windows for a whole
+hour. I always thought that if I could only speak to you, we
+would find some way out. I always thought that everything
+would be all right in the end. Then you became engaged. Yes,
+then I had to admit at last that she was right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, you idiot!” said Myra, laughing through her tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I remember the day so well. Olga came up to my room early
+in the morning. She sat huddled over in the easy-chair, smoking
+one cigarette after another. For half an hour she did not utter
+a word. I sat here at the desk, pretending I was working. I
+had tossed aside my paper when I heard her coming. But from
+the way she sat there, I thought, ‘She knows already!’ She knew
+I knew it, but neither of us wanted to begin the conversation.
+When she finally did, she kept saying ‘I’m so happy, I’m so
+<a id="page-128" class="pagenum" title="128"></a>
+glad!’ And she demanded that I celebrate with her, too. In the
+evening we went to have a bottle of wine together. She made
+me do it. I can still see her as she sat at the table, turning the
+wine-glass in her hand. She had such a curious smile all that
+day. Again she said to me, ‘So little Myra is going to be married.
+That’s fine, fine. Our little Myra will have children, real
+lads who will never know a trouble in life.’ Then she kept demanding
+that I say how happy it made me. And I had to say
+so—as matters then stood it was the best thing to do—but from
+that day on she lived in morbid dread of meeting you somewhere
+on the street. Sometimes when she needed something,
+she would ask me to get it. She would sit here, pale, with her
+hands folded, and say, ‘Please, please, Peterkin, I can’t go to the
+store.’ For the last eight or ten days she hardly left her room.
+She used to telephone me to come over, she did not want to go
+on the street. But of course, there was another reason for that
+as well....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What was that?” asked Myra after staring silently out of the
+window for a long time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He cast a quick and searching glance at her. “So you don’t
+know?” he asked as if relieved. “You really know nothing
+about it? I was sure you didn’t. But they had her shadowed—your
+people, you know. No matter where she went there was
+always a detective after her. Oh, she suffered so cruelly because
+of that!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But why?” asked Myra. “Why should they do that? They
+had me where they wanted me. They knew just where I spent
+every hour of the day.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Probably they were afraid. They may have thought, before
+your engagement at any rate, that you might waver in your resolves,
+or that she might try to influence you again; they may
+have wanted to catch her at something so that they could have
+her deported as an undesirable alien. Your Uncle bought up
+all her debts. You did not know that either, I believe. So they
+<a id="page-129" class="pagenum" title="129"></a>
+had her cornered. Every day there were letters from attorneys,
+from the courts.... Later on she simply refused to open them.
+She used to let them pile up on her desk. I said to her sometimes,
+‘You can’t do that, you must answer them, you must go,
+you must make promises.’ Then she would smile an infinitely
+melancholy smile. ‘I’ve lost my sense of humor, Peterkin,’ she
+would say, ‘I’m old and tired. It isn’t a hunt as far as I’m concerned’—and
+she indicated the pile of papers with a wave of
+her hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then there were threatening letters—I can’t tell you how
+vulgar. Filled with expressions that one simply can’t repeat.
+From your Aunt Emily, I think. But they were sent as if they
+came from you. They said you knew now the sort she was and
+wanted her to drop every attempt to get in touch with you and
+to stop blackmailing you. It was sufficient that she had seduced
+you into stealing and breaking open people’s desks, that she
+had undermined your health, that she had caused your father’s
+death—ah, I don’t know all that was in them. And then, things
+you were supposed to have said—they must have been horrible,
+for she would never tell me what they were or let me read them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She used to sit here in front of me, her face perfectly white
+and her eyes blazing, while she gripped my wrist so that I
+thought she would snap the bone. ‘Myra doesn’t know anything
+of this, does she, Peterkin?’ she kept repeating, ‘Myra
+doesn’t know about this?’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There were times when I did not like that tone of voice. But
+now, when it is ringing in my ears again, I don’t see how I
+could have failed to understand it. From that time forth, she
+began frequently to speak of the journey. ‘I’m going home on
+the twenty-second of June.’ She was always saying it. Once I
+asked her why she had chosen that particular day. She laughed
+and said, ‘Because it is three days after the nineteenth.’ I pondered
+over it considerably. But at that time the connection was
+not clear to me....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-130" class="pagenum" title="130"></a>
+“But after your engagement everything was different. Suddenly
+she began to say ‘When I go away—next week—or the
+day after tomorrow,’ I teased her about it, ‘So you’ve turned
+traitor to your plans? I thought you weren’t going away until
+three days after the nineteenth?’ Then she looked at me mysteriously
+and shook her head. ‘Ah, no, Peterkin, I have no reason
+for waiting now!’”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“On the evening of the ... on Monday evening, she appeared
+here suddenly in what I thought was a very cheerful
+state of mind. She laid the cigarette case on my desk just where
+it’s lying now, and asked me to do her the favor of placing it in
+your hands. She intended to go away and was already packing.
+If she sent the case to you, it would probably be taken as an attempt
+at blackmail!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was to give it to you after she had gone—on your birthday.
+And she insisted that I mark the date on my calendar. I said I
+could remember it without that. But she opened my calendar
+to the date and marked it herself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With an almost devout gesture, he turned back the last leaf
+and pushed the calendar toward Myra. In the white space, under
+the nineteenth of June, which had been carefully circled,
+was written in Olga’s bold, beautiful hand, “Myra’s birthday.
+Don’t forget, Peterkin!” Underneath were three crosses, playful
+little crosses marked in black ink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra said nothing. She laid the palm of her hand on the paper
+and did not remove it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peterkin cleared his throat a few times and continued. “Before
+she left, we arranged everything for the next day. We
+would inquire about the trains in the morning; in the evening,
+I would take her to the station. But when she had gone, I grew
+terribly nervous. Something struck me as wrong, but I didn’t
+know what it was. I tried to telephone her, but there was no
+answer. I sat here at my desk in a quite indescribable state of
+<a id="page-131" class="pagenum" title="131"></a>
+nerves. This thing was lying before me,” he picked up the cigarette
+case. “I picked it up quite without thinking. Suddenly
+it occurred to me—pardon, Myra, if it was not discreet, but I
+felt such dreadful anxiety—suddenly it occurred to me to open
+it. I did so half in fun, half with the notion that I might find
+something in it which would tell me something. When I
+opened it, I found this note.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He handed it to Myra. Under the clasps that were to hold the
+cigarettes against the case, was a slip of paper. On it was written
+in Olga’s unmistakable hand:
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+“<span class="language" lang="la" xml:lang="la">Qui vivens laedit, morte medetur!</span>”
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“<span class="language" lang="la" xml:lang="la">Qui vivens laedit, morte medetur!</span>” repeated Peterkin. “I
+read it several times like a drunken man without understanding.
+Then I rushed down. Without my hat, without my keys.
+The lower house was locked. I rang for the doorman. He did
+not come at once. I rushed upstairs again to get my keys. It took
+me ages to unlock the house, to run around the corner and ring
+for their doorman—ages. On the stairs I met the maid, screaming
+and sobbing. It had already happened.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra laid her forehead against the edge of the desk. Not a
+sound was to be heard. Peterkin stroked Myra’s hair once or
+twice, with trembling fingers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There is something else that I must tell you,” he said in a
+low voice. “She was completely covered with your flowers. Perhaps
+that will make you happy. You know, when you parted
+that time—you ran downstairs with your people after you—I
+half heard what was said between you. After quite a long while
+I went back to my room—there was Olga still standing in the
+middle of the room, supporting herself against the table. When
+I entered, she looked at me as if I were awaking her from sleep.
+I took her by both arms and shook her. ‘What’s happened,
+Olga? What have you done to Myra?’ She looked distractedly
+<a id="page-132" class="pagenum" title="132"></a>
+at me and kept repeating ‘Something terrible, Oh, God, Peterkin,
+something terrible!’ She showed you the door quite formally,
+did she not? She said that you shouldn’t bother her
+again, or something like that, didn’t she?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then she seized my hand and said very quietly, ‘I’m lying,
+Peterkin, I’m simply lying. It was nothing but my miserable
+cowardice. But Myra must know that, she understands me. I
+would have jumped in front of a train for her, I’d have jumped
+out a window, but I can’t let the clothes be torn off my body
+in front of such people, I can’t, I can’t. I know, I’m a miserable,
+contemptible creature, but I can’t, I can’t.’ I asked her what you
+had answered. She turned quite pale and said, ‘Nothing. Not
+a word. That’s the terrible part. She was so defenseless against
+my commonness.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then she had another discussion with Miss Flesch. You
+have no idea how that woman acted. Olga would not remain in
+the house another hour. For which I could hardly blame her.
+Then she went to pack her things. In a few moments she came
+back, and seizing me by the wrist, drew me into her room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘That is her answer,’ she said and showed me the money on
+the bed. ‘She is articulate,’ she said. ‘We underestimated her
+powers.’ Oh, Myra, why did you do that? To be quite frank, I
+was dreadfully angry with you myself at the time. She kept
+saying ‘What shall I do? What shall I do?’ I said ‘Put the money
+in an envelope and send it back without any message.’ But she
+shook her head. ‘I deserved the blow,’ she said at last, ‘I will
+have to take it and smile.’ She gathered the bills almost lovingly,
+saying several times in a low voice, ‘What a child! What
+a child! She did not know what she was doing! She did not
+know what she was doing!’ Then she gave me the roll of bills.
+‘Keep it for me, Peterkin, the time may come when I shall need
+it, and when it will be a joy to me to know that it comes from
+Myra.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I mentioned it to her often before the end, when she literally
+<a id="page-133" class="pagenum" title="133"></a>
+did not know which way to turn for troubles. But she always
+shook her head and said, ‘Not yet, not yet!’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“After she—was dead,” his voice broke, “I bought white
+orchids for her, I spent the whole sum: she looked beautiful.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He could get no further. His lips quivered, the tears rolled
+down his cheeks. After a long, long pause, Myra sat up: her eyes
+were dry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beside the cigarette case, on the desk, lay a revolver.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that the revolver?” asked Myra and reached for it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Give it to me.” She clasped the butt in her fingers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peterkin made a gesture of terror. But Myra slowly shook her
+head. Peterkin looked into her eyes, then he reluctantly drew
+back his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I do not want to keep it,” he said, “it is too much of a constant
+temptation. And not everyone has as steady a hand as
+Olga Radó. You have a right to it. Of course. But I should not
+like you to keep it either. Promise me something, Myra—promise
+me you will give it to the man you love. Then it will be in
+the best hands.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had risen. “I promise you,” she said almost solemnly, “I
+will give it to the man I love.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Promise that you won’t do anything silly with it, that you
+won’t carry it carelessly or foolishly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I promise you,” said Myra, “with this proviso. I have no
+right yet to swear on my life that I won’t shoot myself. But
+I will swear by my eternal salvation. I will swear by Olga
+Radó’s ten thousand times sacred memory.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Something struck him in her tone. He rose slowly from his
+chair as if trying to search her eyes with his own. “Tell me,
+Myra,” he said, “I hope you are not angry with me. I should not
+like anything that I have said to influence your decisions in any
+way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra held his fingers in a short firm clasp. From the swift
+<a id="page-134" class="pagenum" title="134"></a>
+gesture with which she drew herself up and ran her hand over
+his hips, it was apparent that she was at the utmost limit of her
+powers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I swear,” she said, “that from this hour forth nothing and
+nobody can ever again influence my decisions.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Myra did not return home at once. In a few seconds she had
+made plans which instantly became decisions. There was no
+wavering as they took form; it all advanced with one stride
+from darkness into light and remained there irrevocably.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She visited a shipping-agency and the landlord of the house
+in which she had spent so many years. There was a time when
+she would have dreaded such tasks. Now she felt that never as
+long as she lived should anyone relieve her of such unpleasantnesses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It made her feel good, to be determined, to manage her affairs
+prudently and deliberately. When she entered her room
+and laid her hat in the closet, her hand touched the black dress
+that she had worn to her father’s burial. For a moment, she felt
+a desire to put it on, to see herself in gloomy crêpe. But she
+drew herself up. “Nonsense!” she muttered, gritted her teeth
+and shut the closet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went to her father’s study, seated herself at the desk and
+wrote various letters, to the attorney, to the bank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a while the maid entered. “Your Aunt, my mistress,
+requests you to come to dinner.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra did not raise her head. “Tell your mistress, my Aunt,
+that I have already eaten. And request my Aunt, your mistress,
+to come here after dinner.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The maid stood in the door for a moment, her mouth wide
+open. But as Myra did not stir, adding nothing and retracting
+nothing, simply scratching her pen hurriedly over the paper,
+she trotted off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-135" class="pagenum" title="135"></a>
+Presently, Aunt Emily appeared, visibly undecided as to
+whether to be indignant or affable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sit down, please,” said Myra in a tone, so businesslike, so
+short, so firm and unimpeachably polite that it threw Aunt
+Emily into confusion and deprived her of all power of speech.
+“Pardon me, if I shorten your afternoon nap a little, but I have
+something to say to you and time is pressing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra picked up the paper-knife, turned it over and over,
+bent it, rapped her outstretched fingers with it, and stared intently
+at it while she spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You will have to decide quickly where you are going—I am
+about to travel....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am about to travel. We are going to break up the household.
+The house will be rented. Newes has agreed to let me
+break the lease. The furniture will be put in storage. Within the
+next few days. I’m beginning today. The moving-men will be
+here tomorrow. You will certainly want to get out of the way
+of the commotion. I suggest that you go to a hotel or a pension
+until you have definitely made up your mind. If you need the
+maid this afternoon to help you pack, she will be at your service.
+And then—I should not like you to suffer in a pecuniary
+way on my account. I should prefer if you were to state your
+wishes in writing and hand them to Rosenbaum. I have already
+written him in this connection.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra laid down the paper-knife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s about all!” She rose and supported herself with her
+hands behind her, against the desk. “But if we should not see
+one another again, God’s will be done, and well done by you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aunt Emily also rose, her knees trembling, while her face
+turned all shades of color from citron yellow to ash gray.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And—and Alfred?” she asked with a vain effort to inject a
+touching gentleness into her sharp voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-136" class="pagenum" title="136"></a>
+“What? Who?” Myra knitted her brow. “Oh, yes—no thank
+you. You don’t have to notify him. I will take care of everything
+necessary myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Myra!” said Aunt Emily solemnly, “what would your dear
+father say! I have cared for and shielded you from the day you
+were born, and for thanks I am shown the door....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra seized the paper-knife again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have already written Rosenbaum that he is to transfer fifty
+thousand marks of my fortune to you. With what you have and
+what is coming to you from father, you can live very comfortably
+indeed. I will go tomorrow morning and give him the
+necessary authorizations.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Myra,” said Aunt Emily with mounting pathos. “I shielded
+you from an awful fate. You ought to go down on your knees
+and thank me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right, all right,” said Myra and made a rather wry
+mouth. “I’ll tell Rosenbaum a hundred thousand.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Aunt Emily turned and rushed out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra packed her things in feverish haste as if for flight. She
+worked all day and night, permitting no one to help her, not
+even the maid, not even Peterkin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But on the evening, when she was departing, Peterkin came
+to fetch her from the house and accompany her to the depot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The house was dark and empty. All the furniture had been
+removed. The chandeliers were down and the windows curtainless.
+Here and there a picture hook projected disconsolately
+from the bare wall, or a square on the paper showed that a picture
+had hung there for years. A big suitcase and a small bag
+stood in the middle of the empty room. Myra had stuck a lit
+taper on the window-sill. It gave a strange, flickering half-light.
+Their shadows glided, huge and bent along the walls and ceiling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peterkin kept glancing at his watch. “Isn’t it time for me to
+call the taxi?” he asked uneasily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-137" class="pagenum" title="137"></a>
+Myra raised her hand. “Stop it! We have oceans of time. What
+would we do at the station? And what difference does it make
+if I miss the train? I’ll simply leave in the early morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah,” said Peterkin relieved, “I’d much prefer that. I don’t
+understand how anybody can travel at night.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll travel in the morning,” said Myra. “In a few hours the
+dawn will come. But I love the night. Whoever loves the stars
+must love the night. Tell me, Peterkin, have you really never
+thought that they’re up there in the daytime, too—just as remote
+and just as near as at night? Sometimes I try to see them
+when the sun is shining—and I feel quite certain—that such
+and such a one is here, and another there, and I can hardly wait
+for twilight to make them visible.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You get that from her, too,” said Peterkin sadly, “that insane
+love of the stars.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Myra and her deep voice was like a bell, “what
+have I that I didn’t get from her? Everything! Certainly all
+love. The earth and sky are full of things she loved. And her
+love streams back to me again from all those things. Good
+God, how many things she loved. Mountains and seas and flowers
+and spiders and little children and leather and silk and crystal
+and Günderode and the blessed St. Francis of Assisi—and—me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Truly, she taught me love. Good heavens, if Aunt Emily
+were to hear that she would certainly read a wrong meaning
+into it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Once she said something to me, Olga, I mean, it was when
+we were on our trip and were talking about our future, and I
+said that I did not want to be separated from her until I came
+of age. Then she grew quite impatient and said, ‘Good heavens,
+what a dreadful attitude, never to be able to love what you
+aren’t holding in your own two hands!’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wasn’t she right, too? Why shouldn’t one love the dead and
+those who are arriving and those who are far away, whose existence
+<a id="page-138" class="pagenum" title="138"></a>
+we can only surmise or whose creation wafts us a breath
+of their souls? And why only one, why not thousands—those
+for whom we yearn and those who yearn for us—those who
+have died with longing for us unfulfilled, and those who will
+live with longing unfulfilled after us, when we have long been
+dead. Sometimes I feel as if I should stretch both my arms into
+space and call, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you!’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is strange,” said Peterkin timidly, shaking his head as he
+gazed up at Myra who stood, weirdly tall and slender in the
+spectral light, “it is strange how like her you sometimes are.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is much stranger how <em>unlike</em> her I was,” said Myra, with
+a smile. “Remote, strange, unrelated. So horribly unlike her
+that I really did not understand her at all. I think I tormented
+her to death with jealousy and distrust.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And now?” asked Peterkin. “Would you be jealous and distrustful
+now? Who knows, if you had remained together, perhaps
+in a few months you would have had cause to be.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra shook her head slowly. “You’re just trying to comfort
+me, Peterkin. But you don’t succeed. My delight in her was so
+uncontrollable. Even though her form were destroyed a thousand
+times, my delight in her will always remain. I see now
+that I should not have been so greedy as to rob heaven and
+earth of her love. But Olga never deceived me. Never, never,
+never!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The train, Myra,” warned Peterkin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra glanced at her wrist-watch. “Yes, we must go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peterkin went to call a taxi. The chauffeur carried down the
+luggage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And look there,” she rose with a strange rapture on her face
+and pointed to the starry sky, “there’s Antares! The heart of
+the Scorpion! I’ll follow it, farther and farther south. We may
+remain together, or I may wait until it appears again, for it is
+the most trustworthy of friends.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nevertheless,” said Peterkin, “I have a feeling that it will be
+<a id="page-139" class="pagenum" title="139"></a>
+very little protection or friendship for you. When I think that
+in a few nights you will be sleeping in a strange city, in a
+strange bed....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Splendid!” said Myra. “That is the one thing that can give
+me peace. A room that I’ve never set eyes on before. And what
+if that room is already there and another person occupies it
+and fills it with his sorrows and joys and worries and thoughts?
+Must one always lie down in a strange bed with a feeling of
+aversion? There are no strange microbes and bacteria in a
+freshly made hotel bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In the morning the strange bed will tell me everything it
+has ever experienced. That’s also a fairy gift, you know. I’m no
+longer afraid because things begin to talk to me. It is always
+the lucky children in the fairy tales or the wise men in the
+stories—King Solomon conversing with the birds—to whom
+things and animals and trees tell their secrets. You don’t know
+what that means. The whole world was so dreadfully mute.
+And now everywhere I hear beloved, familiar, inaudible voices.
+You can’t imagine with what joy and pride that fills one. See,
+Peterkin, that is something else that I learned from her, from
+Olga.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am grateful to her for what hours of pleasure I may again
+find in this masked ball of life, but if the effort seems worthless
+to me, then I shall be grateful to her for showing me the exit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Peterkin somewhat bitterly, “a loaded revolver.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, more than that,” said Myra, “it isn’t done with that
+alone. Don’t you remember what the little mermaid yearned
+for, why she let them cut off her tongue, why she suffered a
+thousand agonies at every step she took—what only a great, a
+truly great love could give her? Well, Olga gave me that. Olga
+has given me everything one needs to confront the future with
+imperturbable calm—a loaded revolver and an immortal soul!”
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-10">
+<a id="page-140" class="pagenum" title="140"></a>
+X
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Myra locked and bolted the door. She heard the footsteps of
+the maid grow fainter, a click as the electric lights were turned
+on and off, a latch lifted somewhere in the distance, the creaking
+of a hinge—more steps, probably on the next floor—and a
+slowly repeated, irregular sound as if an open window were
+banging. Then silence. Vast, overarching, empty, cool, dark,
+unmoving silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra had to make up her mind at last to take her hand from
+the lock and go to the electric button, although she was afraid
+of the sound of her footsteps and the rustling of her own skirt.
+She turned on all the lights, even the little lamps beside the bed
+and on the desk. In the overilluminated room, she stole along
+the walls, opening and closing the closets, raising the curtains
+and drawing them again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was not afraid that there might be a murderer hidden in
+the room, but she wished to familiarize herself with every detail
+of her strange surroundings. She was merely afraid that
+something might surprise, and thereby terrify, her. The unfamiliar
+furniture might assume the form of a phantom figure
+in the dark room, a draft might twist the curtains into human
+shape. She also examined the pictures very carefully. She recollected
+from feverish nights in her childhood that even well-known
+pictures, when seen in the dusk or in the penumbra of
+the night-lamp by the bed, can transform themselves into
+terrifying faces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she had examined the room in this fashion, she again
+turned out all the bulbs except one that shed only a very diffuse
+light. But there was no longer anything to terrify her in
+<a id="page-141" class="pagenum" title="141"></a>
+this twilight: Myra knew that that crouching shadow was the
+curved commode, and that unaccountable ray of light came
+from the edge of the mirror above the wash-basin, reflecting
+the reflection of the electric light in the mirror on the bureau.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She opened her suitcase and took out various articles she
+needed—a night-dress, which she spread on the bed, a couple
+of bottles and brushes, which she carried to the wash-basin.
+Then she brought the box from the night-table and laid a piece
+of soft white silk on the bottom—as carefully as if she were
+smoothing her lover’s couch, or preparing for a priestly service.
+With cautious movements, as if she were handling living objects,
+she laid the revolver and the cigarette-case with the scorpion
+inside. She shut the box with a determined gesture, for,
+as always, the sight of the revolver aroused in her an almost
+passionate desire to set its cool, smooth, metallic mouth to her
+temple. She was afraid to give way to this desire, for she was
+not sure that some sudden impulse might not make her pull
+the trigger, and thus, lead her, rather by accident than from
+necessity, to destroy herself, and thereby extinguish thought,
+feeling, memory, anticipation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She did not wish to die. Or rather, she would gladly have
+died, if it had not involved being dead. She would gladly have
+died the same death as Olga, if only to be able to know with her
+last thought that she was suffering all that Olga had suffered,
+and that it was not so unbearable, so terrible, as inexperience
+imagined it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the other hand, she felt a fierce desire for life of which
+she knew so little. Not that she promised herself any great joys,
+any fine raptures therefrom. But she felt so well armed against
+the beautiful and terrifying monster that it would have been a
+pity to give up the struggle. It seemed to her as if Olga’s blood
+had bathed her soul in that invulnerability that Siegfried
+found in the dragon’s blood. She was convinced that she had
+surmounted the most beautiful, the most difficult, the most
+<a id="page-142" class="pagenum" title="142"></a>
+significant part of her life. In the tragedy or comedy in which
+birth compelled her to participate, she had had to play her part
+only in the first act. She had expended all her strength and feeling—and
+now she mingled with the supers, still eager, but exhausted
+by the shocks which she had undergone: half curiously,
+half wearily, she watched the others act.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In reality, her curiosity was stronger than she knew, and
+although she thought, or wished to think, that she was no
+longer capable of any powerful emotion, either joy or pain, although
+she felt that her peace of mind was steeled against impacts
+of every sort, she felt moved to try the invulnerability of
+her armor, to seek out new impressions, and expose herself to
+them. She would plunge into the thickest of the fray, pressing
+the bristling spear-heads to her breast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first to which she so eagerly offered herself and whose
+wounds she had certainly not suffered before, were strangeness
+of surroundings and solitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As a result of the feeling that in her new freedom she had
+herself elected strangeness and solitude, and as a result, too, of
+the thought that nothing more could hurt her, nothing more
+must hurt her since her separation from Olga Radó, she felt the
+cold and almost hostile silence as a kind of beneficent release.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One thing she knew—she could endure solitude. But tomorrow
+she would be compelled to take her meals in a room containing
+ten or twenty strange people. The idea almost took
+away her breath. She felt curious eyes pricking her skin like
+pin-points. But she would endure that, too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Somewhere below a door slammed, with a dull, heavy sound
+that shook all the walls. The elevator rose with a humming
+noise as if the huge body of the house were drawing a labored
+breath. In the stillness of the night she could hear quite clearly
+the click as it passed the first, then the second, floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She heard, too, the opening of doors, the clinking of keys
+and grinding of locks, the snapping of electric buttons, footsteps
+<a id="page-143" class="pagenum" title="143"></a>
+moving carefully over muffling carpets or pounding on the
+bare floor. A suppressed laugh, a whispered good night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra tried to decide whether these voices which she could
+barely hear were pleasant or unpleasant. She arrived at no very
+definite decision.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door opened in the adjoining room. Again she heard the
+softest rustling, the click of the electric light, the drawing of
+curtains.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra knew nothing of the man in the next room, nothing.
+Not even his name, not even his age, not even as much as can
+be read in any face that hastily passes one by in a dark street.
+And yet she knew that her neighbor did not care to be waked
+up early, for she heard the window shut with considerable care.
+That he was a considerate person, for he took pains to make no
+noise, pulled off his shoes quietly and stole about in soft slippers
+so that she could no longer hear him walking, and sensed his
+presence only by a slight vibration. He was a cleanly person,
+too, for despite the lateness of the hour, he brushed his teeth at
+some length.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It made Myra laugh. Perhaps it would be best to make the
+acquaintance of all one’s fellow humans in this fashion. What
+good did it do to learn a stranger’s name, or his occupation, or
+his father’s position? What use was it to talk with someone and
+know no more about him in the end than where he spent last
+summer or what he thought of the latest operetta? But what
+use was it, either, to live with only a wall dividing you from
+someone so that you could hear every breath he drew—and
+still know nothing about him?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ah, of what use was it to be of one blood with someone, and
+spend your life with him from the day you were born? Of
+what use was it to love someone, to love him with every fibre
+of your body and soul—if in the last analysis you really knew
+nothing about one another?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra went to the window and leaned out. She scanned the
+<a id="page-144" class="pagenum" title="144"></a>
+heavens for Antares, her star. But the brick walls of the houses
+hid it. She leaned out a little farther, peering down into the air-shaft.
+She felt a strange dizziness. If she were to fall down
+there, no one would notice it. If they found her body there in
+the morning, nobody would know what to do, whom to notify,
+whom to send for.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was indeed free. So free that it sent a little shiver down
+her spine. Not the trace of a chain left, but no bond of any kind,
+either; no walls to circumscribe her, but also no sheltering roof.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The persons to whom love or obligation had bound her were
+dead. Her father was dead, Olga was dead. From the others she
+had severed herself with one sharp slash.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dear stars,” thought Myra, “how good it is that you are up
+there! Always the same, after tens of thousands of years, the
+same as when Olga and I lay by the Wannsee. There is no such
+thing as chance, there can be no such thing as chance. Why do
+not the stars collide and plunge with a trail of sparks through
+the night? Eternal, immutable laws keep their huge bodies
+floating in space and guide them with as vast composure along
+their courses as if it were the easiest thing in the world to rule
+the stars. At some point I, too, am subject to those laws and cannot
+resist—nor do I want to. I am afraid when I must decide
+to go right or left, and yet all roads are closed to me except that
+single one which I shall and must take because it is mine, the
+one immutably predestined road which will lead me to my
+goal. To what goal? That I do not know. But since I am alive
+there is probably something in store for me somewhere, and the
+best course is to await it in patience.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+In the large dining-room of the pension, Myra had her table
+in the darkest corner. The friendly hostess had felt obliged to
+apologize because all the places near the window were occupied
+by prior guests. It quite suited Myra. She sat with her back
+to the wall and the little table before her like a bastion. Usually
+<a id="page-145" class="pagenum" title="145"></a>
+she appeared when the first gong struck so that she could
+watch the others pass by and would not have to weave her
+way between the crowded tables. Once she was late, and the
+short walk across the room had been a torture to her. She felt
+herself racked and impeded by all the shamelessly inquisitive,
+and even the indifferent, glances. Although she always looked
+into the mirror before she left her room, she thought that her
+hair must be disordered if a glance rested on it, or that she had
+a hole in her stocking if someone stared at her legs. Then she
+would have to struggle sternly against the impulse to put her
+hand to her head, or to glance at her feet. She would press her
+elbows against her body, and endeavor to assume an impenetrable
+expression, and to move cautiously—she was plagued by
+the idea that she would overturn a chair or upset a plate. She
+tried to walk so quickly that no one could observe how precisely
+she navigated. Once seated, she felt as if she had reached
+a haven.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Generally, she took a newspaper with her, in order to screen
+herself behind it while she was waiting. She was not afraid that
+someone might accost her—talking was much less terrifying
+to her than walking—she was afraid of looking as if she were
+expecting to be accosted, so unoccupied, so solitary, so hungry
+for a charitable word.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Actually, she was nothing of the kind. The less she had occasion
+to speak, the less she missed speaking. But while it
+caused her no unhappiness, it did require a certain resolution
+before she could bring herself to say something to the maid.
+When, in the evening, she went to her room, and bolted the
+door after the last, “That will be all, thank you, Bertha,” the
+feeling that now she could be silent, now she was permitted to
+be silent, was like a deliverance to her. At times it seemed to her
+as if her tongue had become atrophied like any other disused
+muscle. And she wasted no further pity on the Trappists because
+she perceived quite clearly that it requires but a few
+<a id="page-146" class="pagenum" title="146"></a>
+weeks so to accustom one’s self to silence that the utterance of
+a word presents tremendous difficulties.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra’s yearning for Olga almost drove her mad—but that
+was by no means the worst of it. The worst was that her yearning
+was the cry of a human soul, not for love, not for companionship
+or understanding, but for the warmth of a body, for the
+pressure of encircling arms and tender lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At such times, Myra would tear the pillow with her nails
+and teeth, and shake as if in fever. At such moments, too, she
+felt certain that she really must be a wicked creature, the most
+damning evidence being that she could never succeed in feeling
+repentant or in making good resolutions. On the contrary,
+if she were very unhappy, she resolved at once to be wicked.
+Her desire to study and improve herself was only for the sake
+of acquiring more power over people, to beguile, to seduce
+them. Then she would enjoy whatever stirred her desire or her
+curiosity, were it only for an hour; she would merely skim the
+chalice, squeeze the juices from the fruit, and pass quickly
+from one sensation to another, never boring herself, never tying
+herself to anything, never creating from the depths.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some such resolution impelled her to mingle with people.
+She meant to plunge head first into the stream, because she
+felt within herself the power to master the current. She determined
+to start an acquaintance the next day, to place herself on
+speaking terms with someone. Like a stone cast in the waters,
+a word can spread wider and wider ripples. In a few weeks she
+might find herself the center of a circle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But next day when she reviewed all the faces, they seemed
+to her suddenly vacuous and boresome, or false and sinister,
+and she drew into herself like a frightened hedgehog, timid
+and hostile. She made a new resolution—not to speak, never,
+never to say a word, never to utter more than was absolutely
+essential, to erect barricades and walls of silence between herself
+and the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-147" class="pagenum" title="147"></a>
+Things might have gone along in this fashion for weeks and
+months, had not Gisela Werkenthin arrived at the pension one
+day, to visit the painted young lady. She attracted Myra the
+instant that she entered the dining hall. Not that she was especially
+beautiful. She was built on the slim, slight, boyish
+scheme. Her narrow face seemed even narrower because of her
+dark hair, which was cut in page fashion and concealed half of
+her cheeks. Her mouth was all but lipless, simply a delicate,
+pale red, proud, severe curved line. Her dark eyes with their
+strikingly wide lids lay in great, deep ashen-gray hollows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That night Myra did not rise from table immediately after
+supper as usual. She ordered a cup of tea and in order to have a
+pretext, pretended to be stirring the tea impatiently, to cool it
+while she watched the table at which sat the pale girl with the
+bobbed hair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She laughed with the others, drank and smoked innumerable
+cigarettes. But she had a trick of withdrawing completely
+into herself in the midst of the noisy conversation. Her slender
+hand with its lit cigarette would remain as if petrified in the
+air, while her eyes bored through the fog of tobacco smoke and
+steam as if they were beholding something indescribably horrible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next day Myra visited Mrs. Meidinger, the hostess.
+There was a small matter she had to discuss with her which
+ordinarily she would have conveyed by the maid. But during
+the night, she determined irrevocably to make her leap into
+“life.” It was for this reason that she constrained herself for the
+first time to pay a personal call. The hostess, blond, rotund,
+coiffured and as amiable as ever, received her in her comfortable
+living-room, enthroned behind a well-covered tea-table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She seemed quite enchanted to see Myra. She teased so long
+that at last Myra accepted a cup of tea, while she began to ply
+the girl with questions in which curiosity and friendliness were
+equally commingled, and which Myra answered because she
+<a id="page-148" class="pagenum" title="148"></a>
+saw no reason not to answer them. But she smiled slightly and
+thought, “If I really wanted to hide something from you, my
+dear, I would do it so well that you would never even suspect
+it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She readily admitted that she was an orphan. Yes, she believed
+that the mourning she was now wearing for her father
+did explain her pale and sorrowful expression. Thus the good-natured
+and inquisitive woman would never think of any secret
+grief or probe its causes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra’s story was soon told. She was an orphan, had neither
+brothers nor sisters nor grandparents, and had visited this
+strange city in order to dispel her sad memories in a new environment.
+The hostess was satisfied with that explanation, or
+appeared to be. She confessed to Myra—what surprised her very
+much—that all the guests had inquired concerning her, and
+that each had assumed some romantic history behind the silent
+young lady in mourning. Miss Luigi—no doubt Myra knew
+who Miss Luigi was—worked at a cabaret and had enjoyed a
+great success, a really extraordinary success. Yes, the little lady
+with the beautiful red hair—dyed, quite obviously, as perhaps
+Myra had already remarked? Anyway Miss Luigi was always
+teasing her to introduce her to Myra. But when Mrs. Meidinger
+had told Miss Peters, the latter had said—Miss Peters was always
+very outspoken—and sometimes even a little broad—she
+had said, “What, you mean to introduce that delicate, tender,
+unborn babe to those....” Well, she would rather not repeat
+what Miss Peters had said. Miss Peters was sometimes a little
+broad. But little Miss Luigi was by no means as bad as that. Of
+course, she was no angel from heaven—but whose business was
+that? She, Mrs. Meidinger, was not her sister’s keeper—and
+the most important thing was that her house remained honest;
+that was her business and nobody could say anything against it.
+If a young woman has to earn her bread these days like a man,
+she wants to take her fun like a man, too. Of course, she liked
+<a id="page-149" class="pagenum" title="149"></a>
+respectable people, that went without saying. But, ah, who was
+respectable in these days? Some did one thing, some another.
+Had Myra noticed Gisela yesterday?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra assumed a forgetful expression, but felt as if she had
+blushed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One of the girls who visited Miss Luigi?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, the dark one. Oh, you must have noticed her, Miss
+Rudloff! She looks so unhappy, so dreadfully unhappy! Didn’t
+it strike you? Of course, you wouldn’t notice such a thing, but
+it’s easy for anybody who knows, to see that she’s a dope-fiend.
+It certainly is no indiscretion on my part to tell you what the
+whole town is talking about. And such a talented person! It’s
+a terrible pity, but she’s going to pieces, literally going to pieces,
+over another woman!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An artistic pause. Mrs. Meidinger looked at Myra expectantly.
+Myra felt that the glance demanded some comment
+from her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How dreadful!” she said in the tone of a child to whom
+someone has just told something incredibly horrible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, my dear little girl,” said the hostess with an almost
+commiserating condescension, “in your big innocent eyes it is
+easy to read the question: ‘Are such things possible?’ My child,
+have you any idea of all that goes on! We live in an appalling
+age, really! But what can one do about it? We can no more escape
+our times than we can jump out of our own skins. If I had
+had my way, I’d have lived among respectable people where
+things are decent. Or have sat at the feet of Goethe. But where
+is one to find a Goethe today?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra frankly regretted her inability to assist Mrs. Meidinger
+to this longed-for situation. She pictured it very amusingly to
+herself, and took her leave as soon as possible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even while she was traversing the long, feebly lighted corridor
+that led to her room, her thoughts returned to poor Gisela,
+and did not leave her again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-150" class="pagenum" title="150"></a>
+Poor Gisela, going to pieces over a woman! Ah, how well
+Myra understood that! Just as Gisela would understand Myra.
+Would understand all that Myra had been through, her struggles,
+her sorrow, her love.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt as if she must seek out this strange girl with the
+burning, tormented eyes, must follow her, must seize her hand
+and say, “We understand each other, we belong to each other,
+because we are the most unfortunate souls in the world! We
+must become friends because no one except ourselves can ever
+understand what we have suffered.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The next evening the conversation between the tables concerned
+some story in the newspapers. Some had read it, others
+not, and since Myra had a paper in her hand she offered it to
+her neighbor. Little Miss Luigi also asked if she might glance
+over it, a request which Myra granted with great cordiality,
+and in five minutes a general conversation was in swing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next day it seemed perfectly natural to Miss Luigi to say a
+few friendly words to Myra. In the evening when she was inviting
+her usual crowd to “sample” a glass of brandy in her
+room, she walked over to Myra’s table and asked her to come
+up, too, for a quarter of an hour—nothing “formal,” just “sociable.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra gave herself a mental push, and rose to go. She had to
+pass the table at which were sitting Luisa Peters and her companions.
+Myra held her head high as she walked by, but she
+thought she could feel their surprised and scornful looks along
+her spine. Defiance welled up within her, and she linked her
+arm in little Mara Luigi’s. “I belong with these,” it was meant
+to say to the others, “with these whom you despise but who sympathize
+with me. I don’t belong with you hardened saints. You
+never gave a thought to me before, now it serves you right if I
+am lost!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As she became conscious of this feeling, it struck her as the
+<a id="page-151" class="pagenum" title="151"></a>
+height of absurdity. What had these utter strangers to do with
+her? In what way were they responsible for her? Then she felt
+darkly—“That crowd who are staring after me, scornfully
+and pityingly—are my kind. We have ties in common, I belong
+to them. But I am cutting those ties and going with these others,
+with these strangers with whom I also have something in
+common. But it is a common destiny, not merely a common
+existence. For they understand not merely suffering but passionate
+grief and passionate love. They are not merely ardent,
+but jealous, not merely active, but impetuous. No, I do not belong
+to you! I hate you, I despise you! You and your kind!
+Olga Radó has killed you for me. I no longer belong to you.
+But since I must belong somewhere, I shall try to belong with
+these others.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She entered Mara Luigi’s room as tensely and determinedly
+as if she were entering a new life.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Mara Luigi had to snatch something from nearly all the
+chairs before she could offer her visitors a seat. She tossed an
+armful of all kinds of articles on the bed and said, “There you
+are, my children, be seated!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Lorenz, a slender, well-dressed, blondined girl with a
+pretty, expressionless doll’s face threw herself among the cushions
+on the divan and took a big teddy bear affectionately in her
+arms. A chap named Kramer, a slight, fair-haired young fellow,
+with the face of a child who has known too much too soon,
+struggled for a place on the divan. But pretty Miss Lorenz opposed
+him so vigorously that her slim kicking legs in their thin
+silk stockings were visible above her knees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A grave and sickly looking man, who was not, strictly speaking,
+a member of this circle, since Myra had often observed him
+in friendly conversation with the other party, silently moved up
+a chair for Myra. She was standing irresolutely in the middle
+of the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-152" class="pagenum" title="152"></a>
+Myra smiled her thanks to him, somewhat confused, and sat
+down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile young Kramer had encountered so powerful a
+blow that he scrambled down from the divan with a howl of
+pain and sat on the carpet where he remained, refusing to be
+elevated by force or entreaty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Breslauer, a buxom lady, with strikingly painted eyebrows,
+had discovered a corset of white tricot under a heap of
+other things on the bed, and she must absolutely know whether
+it was made in mass production or whether the famous Fischer
+had “created” it and how much it had cost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Giesbert, a young painter, a slender, good-looking fellow,
+wrenched the corset from the lady’s hands and danced through
+the room with it. Mara Luigi rushed after him. She had caught
+up her short little skirt in her left hand, her right was clutching
+after the artist. When Giesbert held the corset on high, she
+jumped on a chair to reach it. When he hopped back and forth
+on the far side of the table, prepared to change his direction
+any moment, she did the same on the other side. Her comb
+clattered to the floor; curls and strands of hair danced around
+her face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra grasped the arms of her chair tightly and shut her eyes
+for a moment because she felt herself becoming dizzy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So this is ‘life,’” she thought. “I must accustom myself to
+it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ugly, sickly looking man, who had been standing behind
+her chair, said in an uncommonly gentle and pleasant
+voice, “You are a stranger here, are you not?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Myra with a helpless sort of smile, “rather.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She scolded herself for being petty and narrow-minded, but
+she could not help feeling that it was easier to get along in one
+of those stiff and conventional gatherings where the hostess felt
+obliged to look after a strange guest. She did not wish to be
+noticed, did not wish to play a part. She would gladly have
+<a id="page-153" class="pagenum" title="153"></a>
+attended this promiscuous gathering of the clans as a nonparticipating
+spectator—but a quite invisible one. For—quite mistakenly—she
+felt that everybody was staring at her and thinking
+rather uncomfortably that this serious, embarrassed and
+silent young lady did not belong. She was very grateful, therefore,
+when the strange and not very congenial looking man
+spoke to her, grateful that she could turn to him occasionally,
+if only so that the others might not think that she was waiting
+stiffly for somebody to befriend her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ugly man bent forward slightly. “My name is Eccarius,”
+he said. “We’ve been invited here very kindly, but unfortunately
+they’ve neglected to introduce us to one another.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He smiled, and his smile was so kind, so indulgent that it
+captivated Myra at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You shouldn’t say that,” she said, prepared to be indulgent
+on her side, too. “We can get along somehow this way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She mentioned her own name.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“May I?” He drew up a chair beside her. “Of course, we can
+get along, my dear Miss Rudloff! We are hidebound by too
+many outworn conventions. I envy these children their ease.
+They skip and frisk about, speak familiarly to one another,
+sharing all their secrets, and never dreaming how difficult it is
+for one of us to bridge the gap from individual to individual.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the word “us” Myra felt she had been recognized. No
+matter what pains she took, they realized that she was a stranger
+to this circle. She was not quite sure whether it was for better
+or for worse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pretty Giesbert was dancing before the large mirror. He
+had put on the corset over his gray jacket and was trying to pull
+it shut.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My best corset!” screamed Mara Luigi in a rage. “You’re
+going to ruin it! You’re a beast! Take it off, I say, take it off!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t need it,” said Giesbert laughing, “don’t try to
+act as if you’d ever worn one!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-154" class="pagenum" title="154"></a>
+He pinched her sides which caused her to squeak loudly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra would not have admitted even to herself that she felt
+offended by his tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How splendidly young these people are,” she said smiling
+at Eccarius. “I feel quite old and sour beside such children.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Children ...” repeated Eccarius with a strangely reserved
+expression as if his eyes were turned inward, “yes, perhaps—children....”
+Then he glanced at Myra again with his frank
+expression and his kindly smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must have had a very happy childhood.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Myra with complete conviction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra recalled that she had learned to know struggle, unhappiness
+and suffering very young, that she had felt real hatred
+for Aunt Emily who had managed her upbringing with so
+much righteousness and so little understanding, that she was
+aware at an early age what it means to be jealous. And it seemed
+to her as if that period, a period when she was not yet quite ten
+years of age, no longer belonged to her childhood. Childhood
+had been those few years when a stream of happy love had
+bubbled up from her heart and had flowed forth without distinction
+toward whatever trees, animals, persons or dolls happened
+within range of her feelings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the moment when this stream of love had had to force its
+way over obstacles, when it was dried up in places which it had
+formerly enriched, leaving nothing but arid indifference or a
+swamp of hate—at that moment the idea of childhood seemed
+ended for Myra.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” she said, again fastening her gaze on Eccarius, “a very
+happy childhood, but not a very long one. I have a feeling that
+I was awakened before most children—not that I was mature,
+I don’t want you to misunderstand me—I am not mature even
+today....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who is?” asked Eccarius with his gentle smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-155" class="pagenum" title="155"></a>
+“But I believe that I was awakened earlier than other children
+from the bliss of unconsciousness.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is too bad.” Over his grave and clear gray eyes a veil,
+as of profound grief, seemed to be drawn. “It is a great pity, a
+great, great pity.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Involuntarily Myra looked surprised, but he made an effort
+to explain his sympathy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know whenever I see happy children, I always want to
+build walls and ramparts around them, so that they will remain
+as they are, will remain so for a long, long time. It is
+dreadful to think that one poisonous breath can change all the
+happiness of these little creatures into horrible pain.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let him keep them,” cried little Kramer from his place on
+the floor, “let him keep them, if he can’t bear to part with the
+corsets! Every man has his passion, and there must be people
+who find corsets quite diverting.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You swine!” said Miss Lorenz and kicked his shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Giesbert had picked up a tulle hat with egret feathers and
+clapped it on his head. With one hand he held the corsets together
+across his stomach, with the other he clutched anxiously
+at the hat with every step, to keep it balanced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m going to wear this to the artists’ ball,” he announced in
+a tone of triumph, “I’ll be a sensation!” Suddenly he passed into
+falsetto. “Oh, no! I’ll be the fairest maid of all! Sugar-daddy
+will give me an education. If only I knew what for! I have so
+frightfully many talents!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, yes,” cried little Miss Luigi meanwhile and skipped into
+the air, “the artists’ ball at Sophus’! Stand still a minute, you
+loathsome little darling! Tell me seriously, what are you going
+to wear? A costume or what? Come, put those things down,
+Giesbert, else you certainly won’t get a single glass of brandy!”
+She stamped on the floor for emphasis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Giesbert pretended a terrified trembling and quaking while
+his knees shook as he put the articles on the bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-156" class="pagenum" title="156"></a>
+Mara laughed and brought the bottle of brandy from the
+closet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have only two glasses! Ring, will you, Erich?” she commanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, what’s the use,” said Miss Lorenz indifferently, without
+rising, “we’ll drink one after the other. If Emma brings glasses
+in here, she’ll report that we’re holding an orgy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right.” Mara Luigi rinsed the glasses in the wash-basin.
+She reached for a hand-towel, and Myra was somewhat shocked,
+thinking she was about to dry the glasses with it, but she merely
+wiped her finger-tips. She filled the glasses to the brim, and offered
+the first to Myra.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you know what, Miss Rudloff?” she asked as she stood
+before her, “you must come with us tomorrow night, you really
+must.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I?” asked Myra frightened. “Where?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To the artists’ ball, of course! Probably you’ve never been to
+a really truly artists’ ball in all your life. But you must see one.”
+Myra did not feel the slightest inclination to accept. She even
+regretted having accepted the first invitation, instead of remaining
+in her room where she could shut out every disturbing
+sound, and take refuge from her own thoughts in quiet and
+clever books.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I don’t know the persons who are giving it at all,” she
+said helplessly. “Isn’t it strange?” she thought. “At home I
+should certainly have said, ‘The people,’ and have been sharply
+reprimanded by Aunt Emily. And here where ‘persons’ will
+be sure to strike everybody as affected, Aunt Emily’s good teachings
+burst forth for the first time in full flower.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t know whom? Sophus and Nora?” asked Giesbert,
+checking his crazy behavior for a moment and speaking like a
+rational human being while, still out of breath, he smoothed his
+hair. “You don’t know them? Then you certainly will have to
+go there tomorrow for it’s high time that you did know them!
+<a id="page-157" class="pagenum" title="157"></a>
+A pair of splendid women, two of the most remarkable people
+I know! Would anybody like to take exception to that? If so,
+I challenge him to put on the gloves immediately.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He rolled up his sleeves, drew his head between his shoulders,
+and bared his teeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You need have no qualms about going,” said buxom Mrs.
+Breslauer in her somewhat unctuous voice. “I was lugged up
+there the first time positively <em>sans façon</em>, and was received
+charmingly, isn’t it true, Marakin, they were really perfectly
+charming.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” laughed little Kramer, “I really believe they never
+meet anybody except as their guest!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is Gisela coming for us, or shall we see her there?” asked
+Miss Lorenz.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Gisela,” thought Myra, “so she’s going to be there, too. I’ll
+really have to do it. The only alternatives I have are to bury
+myself like a hermit, or to take advantage of every opportunity
+to meet people and learn to know the world and human beings.
+Gisela! Here I sit trying in some way to meet her, and
+when I’m asked to make her acquaintance in the easiest way in
+the world, I haven’t the slightest desire, but only fear and shyness
+and aversion and a feeling that I’d like to creep away somewhere
+and be quiet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eccarius must have read the inner struggle on her face. He
+bent forward slightly. “I think you can venture it,” he said in
+his very soothing way. “You will find a rare bouquet of people
+there. They will certainly distract and may even interest you.
+There are some really worthwhile characters among them. And
+if it becomes too lively for you, I shall undertake to bring you
+home at any time you wish.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So you will be there, too?” asked Myra, relieved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, then I believe I can ‘venture it.’”
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-11">
+<a id="page-158" class="pagenum" title="158"></a>
+XI
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+While Myra was dressing to go to the artists’ ball, she was not
+conscious of any effort to beautify herself in order to attract attention,
+to please, to cause sensation. Indeed, she desired to
+attract as little attention as possible, and would have given a
+good deal to be invisible, or to watch the hubbub from a gallery
+or a darkened adjoining room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She selected a very simple black taffeta dress quite void of
+color or boldness of line. Nevertheless, she could not prevent
+something striking in her appearance. Perhaps it was caused
+by the anticipation which flamed up in the depths of her lifeless
+eyes and which was in such sharp contrast to the gentle, almost
+colorless composure of her pale face.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+As Myra took off her coat in the vestibule of the little villa
+and was at once surrounded by a throng of persons in fantastic
+costumes, and a throng of noises, her immediate thought was
+of escaping. She looked for little Mara Luigi who was raising
+waves of people about her. Perhaps no one would notice if she
+asked for her coat again and slipped quietly out the door. She
+glanced about, weighing the chances of flight, and encountered
+the eyes of Eccarius who stood directly behind her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look around a bit first,” he said soothingly as if he had divined
+her thoughts, “and if it’s too much for you, give me a sign
+and I’ll take you home. I have no intention of staying here till
+daybreak myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rooms were large and bright, and so full of noisy people
+that Myra grew dizzy. A thin, bluish pall of smoke hung over
+the groups and spun in rings around the lamps. Faces stood out,
+<a id="page-159" class="pagenum" title="159"></a>
+impressed themselves on Myra’s mind, sharp and yet unreal,
+like visions in a fever—then disappeared again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eccarius remained at her side, pointing occasionally to someone
+whom she could not discover in the throng, or mentioning
+some name that she did not understand or could not catch because
+it had no meaning for her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A tall, slender, beautiful girl passed them in a sort of page’s
+costume. Eccarius called to her and she stopped and greeted
+him. Myra had an opportunity to observe her. She wore black
+silk knee-breeches, white stockings, a jacket with lace cuffs,
+and had secured her dark, curling hair in a great black knot at
+her neck. Her features were clear and regular, a high and beautifully
+modelled forehead, and an almost challenging, free and
+bold expression which captivated Myra at first glance. She
+seemed to perceive that Myra did not feel quite at home in that
+tumult. She took her by the hand like a child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come,” she said, half to Myra, half to Eccarius, “I’ll take
+this little girl to Nora. She is always ‘the pole of repose in the
+flux of appearances.’ You’ll feel much better with her. Good
+Lord!” She took Myra’s chin in her hand and turned her face
+to Eccarius. “Doesn’t she look like a little child on its first day
+at school? Come, baby; you shall have a place of honor.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She forced her way through chattering, noisy groups. Everywhere
+the beautiful woman was called to, stopped, embraced,
+greeted, questioned. With a patience and affability that never
+altered she always managed to release herself again, but it took
+a quarter of an hour for Myra and her to cross two rooms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the end of the second room was a raised alcove on which,
+towering above the other chairs and a table with a charming
+cover, stood a Renaissance easy-chair, with high and very beautifully
+carved arms. In this arm-chair, standing out against
+its strawberry-red brocade as against a painted background, sat
+a very fair woman, dressed in white, softly flowing white veils
+over her shoulders, a soft white covering over her knees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-160" class="pagenum" title="160"></a>
+Myra was astounded at first sight by the beauty of this vision.
+On closer inspection she perceived that the woman in the chair
+had passed her fortieth birthday, that she was too buxom to be
+beautiful, that age and sickness had ravaged and obscured the
+once pure lines of her face. But the next moment, as Myra held
+her warm, matronly hand, and felt a smile of indescribably
+warming cordiality and kindness envelop her, she forgot all
+about beauty or ugliness, and surrendered without reserve to
+the mild fascination of this personality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here, Norina.” The slender page laid her arm lightly across
+Myra’s shoulder. “Take this little girl under your protecting
+wings. Else she’ll be lost in the hubbub.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Something in the words, the solicitude concealed by a gentle
+irony, recalled Olga so vividly that Myra wanted to howl like
+a whipped dog. She no longer seemed to see the bright room
+with its throngs of people and strange faces as through panes of
+glass. They seemed to crowd in upon her, somehow to break
+through those glass casements which she had set about her
+life. It was all too much after the silence and solitude of the last
+few weeks. She felt herself in a condition not unlike a violent
+attack of fever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra had to smile when she saw a shade of concern pass over
+the fair face of the woman while the room seemed whirling
+about her. She felt a chair moved against her legs while she was
+forced to her seat by gentle but firm hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was sitting on a low chair close beside the high arm-chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There,” said the dark-toned voice behind her. “Now if it’s
+too bright, or too loud, or too gay for you, just lay your little
+head against the arm of my chair and creep under my veil.
+That’s what I always do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Obediently, Myra nestled her cheek against the arm of the
+high chair and felt the veil being drawn over her head. A gentle
+scent of mignonette emanated from the soft, filmy silk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-161" class="pagenum" title="161"></a>
+Nora turned to Myra. “You mustn’t imagine that it’s always
+as gay here as it is tonight. You must come sometime when we
+are more intimate, more quiet. We have a nice little garden
+which is our real joy. Just as long as it is possible, we take tea
+out there and love to have someone keep us company.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, when the flag is up!” laughed the young person on the
+step, turning with a jerk. “You ought to know that we do here
+as at court. When their majesties are at home, the flag is
+hoisted!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You ought to explain, Will,” Nora amended, “just how it is
+done. On the roof of the arbor there is something like a little
+flag-staff <span class="language" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en miniature</span>, with a gay little pennant on it. You can
+see it from all sides, even in front, if you are passing the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But if Sophie has to work very hard, or I am not feeling
+particularly well, we haul in the little flag. Then no one, at
+least none of the initiates, needs trouble to come to the door
+simply to be turned away. For, of course, that’s always painful
+to both sides. For those who have to interrupt their work or control
+their illness, and are disagreeable hostesses anyway; or for
+those who feel like disturbers of the peace. If they are really
+turned away, they usually think, ‘Well, they might have made
+an exception in my case,’ or, ‘They did not have to have the
+maid tell me.’ Most of them are habituated to the lie they tell
+themselves: There is no one at home. That someone should be
+working never seems a sufficient excuse for them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But all our friends know that I never leave the house and
+Sophie very rarely. So the little flag is there to avoid any unpleasantness.
+When it is unfurled that means, ‘Please come
+in, we’re expecting you.’ Then there’s no need even to come
+through the house, for everyone who wishes can enter by the
+garden-gate, or if it should be locked can jump the hedge, eh,
+Will?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Will had sprung up and motioned with his hand without
+even glancing back, for he was staring intently into the
+<a id="page-162" class="pagenum" title="162"></a>
+room where a circle was gathering around a dancing couple.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Fiametta is dancing,” he called back, with a hasty turn of
+his head, “the woman is marvellous! You must see her!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Quite youthful in his impetuousness, he seized Myra by the
+elbow and dragged her from her chair to the step.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ask you, have you ever seen anything like that in all your
+life? Isn’t she dazzling? Isn’t she perfect?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the rather narrow circle which the crowding spectators
+had left free, a slender, well-built young man was dancing with
+a woman of refined beauty and great charm. She was so perfectly
+at one with the music that its tones seemed to emanate
+from her supple body.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had a manner of dancing such as Myra had never before
+seen. Her movements were gentle, cool, subdued, noble and
+almost solemn. At the same time it seemed as if the beautiful
+girl consumed a vast reserve of strength in compelling her symmetrical
+body to maintain its dignified repose, as if it would
+have required only a moment’s forgetfulness for that bridled
+temperament to leap up like a flame, for those soft, relaxed
+muscles to turn to steel and impel her sinewy body through the
+air, like a wild beast springing on its prey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt a kind of painful, burning sensation at the sight of
+her, and when she sought, with her habitual honesty, to account
+for it, she decided that it was envy. A thousand appraising
+glances could never embarrass this woman: it would have been
+no task for her to cross a crowded dining-room to her table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Isn’t she marvellous?” said the young man beside Myra,
+aglow with enthusiasm, “isn’t she fascinating? Isn’t it just as
+if she stepped out of another century? Out of a century when
+there were still beautiful women, beautiful women who left the
+stamp of their personality on their environment, the courts, the
+city, the arts!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra nodded silently. She would have been glad had he kept
+<a id="page-163" class="pagenum" title="163"></a>
+silent, too, for she wanted to know what was being said behind
+her. She could hear Nora’s quiet, gentle voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Certainly, she is very beautiful, Ulrich. She has breeding,
+temperament and culture, everything one could wish, but she
+is a little strange to me, and a little strange she will always remain.
+Perhaps it will sound very silly and sentimental to you if
+I say that she has no heart. But I really believe that she has not
+even the most elementary sort of kindliness....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra could not catch what Ulrich might have objected. But
+she heard Nora’s reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, Ulrich, I cannot agree with you. A woman without
+kindliness is something without charm, without fragrance for
+me, no matter if she is as beautiful as your Fiametta. Oh, yes, I
+know you have a foible for her, and forgive in her everything
+that you would never forgive in another. Of course, no one is
+obliged to love simply because she is loved by another. But then
+one should not arouse feelings in others if one has no use for
+them....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, that! Yes, she does do that! And not in one case only—in
+hundreds of cases. And she keeps right on doing it! She completely
+ruined poor little Miss Bernhardt, she drove Erwin half
+mad, and she’s destroying Gisela now—for the mere diversion!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the name of Gisela Myra started. So this was the woman
+for whose sake Gisela’s life was being destroyed—poor Gisela!
+Oh, Myra knew only too well that it is possible to be destroyed
+for a woman’s sake! Her heart burned with anger and pity,
+with painful recollection and a desire to help, to alleviate, to
+save.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had not another glance to spare for the beautiful woman.
+Her eyes sought Gisela, and found her on the opposite side of
+the room, her shoulders hunched over, the inevitable cigarette
+between her lips, staring into space with an expression of complete
+abstraction. Myra chose a moment when Mara Luigi was
+approaching Gisela, to turn to Nora and excuse herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-164" class="pagenum" title="164"></a>
+“If you will pardon me, I should like to say a word to Miss
+Luigi.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nora’s tone seemed to veil a mild astonishment. “Ah, you
+know her? Are you friends?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt a sudden redness invade her cheeks and forehead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.... No ... that is, we stay at the same pension,” she
+said somewhat embarrassed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She forced a path for herself along the walls, fearing all the
+while that little Mara would have stopped talking to Gisela by
+the time she reached her. She felt that she was committing a
+deed of great daring. She had a feeling, almost of homesickness,
+for the low seat beside the soft, concealing veil; she thought of
+herself as a half-fledged bird that has abandoned its nest to make
+a flight into the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But a fierce impulse drove her forward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I must not be a coward,” she thought, “I will have my destiny
+and I will go forward to meet it. I will open my arms and
+bear with joy everything that is meted out to me. I will love life
+no matter what it brings.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sweet, hot dance melodies quivered through the air.
+They seemed to force Myra’s steps to fall into their light and
+fiery rhythms, while her thoughts kept iterating like the refrain
+of a song, “I will love life, I will love life.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Myra stood before Gisela and Mara had mentioned
+names and made a gesture of presentation, there was that
+strange feeling again—“What is the purpose of it all? What
+will happen now? We have been introduced, that is, we know
+one another’s names, the series of letters whereby we are listed
+in official registers, and that gives us the right to talk to one another.
+But nothing gives me the right to utter what I am thinking.
+If I were to say, ‘I wanted to know you because you make
+me feel so dreadfully sorry, because Mrs. Meidinger has told
+me that you take morphine in order to deaden your grief, your
+<a id="page-165" class="pagenum" title="165"></a>
+sorrow over a woman, and because I understand you so well
+and would like to try to help you, or at least be unhappy with
+you’—if I said that to her, they would shut me up in a lunatic
+asylum. And quite rightly, for if I were in a normal state of
+mind I could never bring myself to say such things.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I believe that I have seen you before,” said Myra with a reserved
+smile, half to Gisela, half to Mara Luigi. “Weren’t you
+at the pension recently?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, of course,” Gisela’s dark eyes were fastened on Myra.
+“That’s where I saw you, too. That’s why your face looked so
+familiar to me. Come on and sit down beside me, there’s still
+room.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thanks,” said Myra and smoothed her taffeta dress before
+she sat down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again she felt a slight anxiety because she thought that it was
+her duty to say something, something, too, that would lift her
+above the average—but she couldn’t think of anything.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gisela was not so easily embarrassed in beginning a conversation.
+“You know little Luigi from the pension, don’t you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She brought you here, didn’t she? You haven’t got anything
+to do with art and such awful things, have you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Unfortunately, no,” said Myra.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Unfortunately? Thank God and your most honorable parents
+that you have a decent occupation.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I haven’t any.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Haven’t any? That’s the most decent of all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you serious? I think it’s dreadful not to have any occupation.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why dreadful? Having an occupation means being paid
+for work. Taking money from somebody, that means being
+subservient to somebody, whether it’s an individual, or a company,
+or the public. Being at the public’s beck and call is the
+<a id="page-166" class="pagenum" title="166"></a>
+worst of all! If you have no occupation and don’t need to have
+one, then you’re your own master! That is to say, you’re not
+anybody else’s servant. Why is that dreadful?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know.” Myra wrung her hands with a gesture of
+helplessness. “Perhaps because then we don’t belong anywhere.
+Home has no meaning for us any more. I was born and
+brought up in the city. But does that give me any feeling of
+home? Yes, perhaps, if I were in Tokio and heard someone
+from the city talking I might discover some such feeling in myself,
+and might even become sentimental with him, when we
+thought of Potsdam or Linden. But just think how ridiculous
+it would be if we addressed somebody in Lucerne or Baden-Baden
+with ‘I believe you come from my native city!’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We have no families any more either! Or we have no use for
+them. Sometimes I envy the old noble houses with their hundreds
+of branches, each linked by name. But above all I envy
+people who have an occupation, for every cobbler has connections
+with every other cobbler, cabmen have something in common
+with all other cabmen, physicians have their colleagues to
+help them in almost every village on the earth. The artists are
+like one big family, especially theatrical people. And sometimes—I
+don’t know if you will understand the feeling—it seems to
+me that it must be good to be chained quite firmly to something—so
+that one will not plunge into the abyss.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, I understand it all right.... Have a cigarette?” She
+offered a narrow birchen case. “Only, I don’t altogether believe
+in this fellow-feeling of fellow-workers. No more than I believe
+in blood relationships. The greatest stranger in the world
+to me is my own sister. No, no, the same kind of education, the
+same kind of interests—they have about as much to do with
+people’s feeling for one another as the same kind of incomes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But one must feel one belongs somewhere,” Myra objected,
+bewildered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gisela shrugged her shoulders wearily. “Yes, if you want to
+<a id="page-167" class="pagenum" title="167"></a>
+feel happy, to feel secure. But our best emotion is probably a
+fellow-feeling for our fellow man. Only, it is in very rare cases
+that we ever discover who he is. And what else is there? Sometime
+I think that people who have suffered the same misfortune,
+the same sickness should band together. The blind, the
+lame, the hunchbacked.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was approximately what Myra herself had previously
+thought. But when she heard it uttered by someone else, it
+roused her opposition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t think,” she said reflectively, “that I would like to see
+myself surrounded by my own infirmities, especially if they
+were exaggerated or distorted, any more than I’d like to see myself
+in a mirror if I were a leper. At bottom it always pleases
+people more to hide their infirmities and keep them as inconspicuous
+as possible. And I don’t believe either that the ailing
+are especially sympathetic to one another! Everyone says to
+himself, ‘He’s a much worse case than I am!’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A young man came up to Gisela and embraced her with a
+girlishly gentle and fawning gesture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must sing something for us, Gisela,” he pleaded, “please,
+please, be nice!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shook her head without answering, knitting her brows
+a little.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he did not release her and begged like a child. “Oh,
+please! Do be nice! Only for a few of us, one tiny little song!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My lute isn’t here, John.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, you can use Sophus’, but come!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With gentle coercion John tugged her from her place. His
+narrow face, sensitive features and delicate bloom of color were
+almost angelic in their beauty. His fair, gently waving hair was
+a little too long, his big dark blue eyes too soft, almost ardent in
+their expression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Despite his surprising beauty, Myra thought his exterior almost
+repellent. But after a few moments she decided that it was
+<a id="page-168" class="pagenum" title="168"></a>
+really his costume which disturbed her, because it suited him
+so little. In a white tunic, in a silk doublet with puff sleeves, even
+in a gold embroidered rococo jacket he would have been a perfect
+picture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gisela, still tightly embraced by his arm, held out her hand
+to Myra. “Come with us, little girl,” she said. “I can’t promise
+you any great enjoyment, but I’ll be flattered if you’ll listen to
+my croakings.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra seized the outstretched hand, letting it draw her along.
+It was a slender, feverishly hot, ruinously thin hand that clasped
+her fingers in a loose, but tenacious grip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Somewhere in the distance she saw Eccarius’ face emerge. He
+did not even glance at her, and yet his grave and worried face
+seemed a reproach to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I suppose I ought to pay some attention to him.” A slight
+feeling of fear, then her defiance blazed high. “But why should
+I? Why must I always be talking obligations into myself which
+really aren’t mine? From now on I’ll have regard for no one,
+I’ll go where I feel attracted—and only where I feel attracted!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the small adjoining room a dozen people were sitting, lying
+and crouching in the most varied postures. Sophie was there
+in her becoming page’s costume. Beside her was the young man
+called Will who had sat on the top of the alcove step, little
+Mara Luigi and the painter Giesbert, who was wearing a kind
+of cowboy costume, and Ulrich, the man with the grave, haggard
+face, and deep minor voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Someone lifted Gisela’s slight, light figure and set it on a
+table. John took the lute from Sophie and laid it in Gisela’s
+arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A young person in a silk Pierrot’s costume who was dashing
+about with a tray of glasses, offered one to Myra. Myra drank
+down the sweet and fiery wine at a draught, in order to be rid
+of the glass, and found herself searching for a seat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-169" class="pagenum" title="169"></a>
+Sophie extended her hand to her. “Come here to me, little
+lost bird,” she said. “No one will hurt you here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not afraid,” said Myra smiling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And she really was not. She felt quite content and well concealed
+in the deep, soft silk cushions between two faces that
+did not seem strange or unpleasant to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Little John with his page-like grace seated himself at her
+feet. And although she felt no particular liking for him, she
+enjoyed his slightly cuddling touch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gisela tuned the strings, her head bent low. Her loose black
+hair fell about her cheeks. With a sudden toss she raised her
+head, shook back her hair, and after a few opening chords began
+to sing.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Somewhere</p>
+      <p class="verse">A voice is calling through the dark night,</p>
+      <p class="verse">A voice that makes me tremble.</p>
+    </div>
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Somewhere,</p>
+      <p class="verse">On their hot couch, hot hands incite</p>
+      <p class="verse">My longing hands to tremble.</p>
+    </div>
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Somewhere</p>
+      <p class="verse">A heart weeps quietly for the right</p>
+      <p class="verse">Against my own to tremble.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Her voice was small as if muffled by a veil, but the deeper
+tones especially had a passionate, enthralling ring. Myra felt as
+if she were caught in the web of a sweet, dreamy happiness that
+was, nevertheless, a painful longing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sophie had put her arm around her, and now and again her
+hand kept time to the music by stroking Myra’s shoulder gently
+and soothingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes Gisela’s eyes sought out Myra while she was singing.
+Their glances met, were fixed one upon another, and it
+<a id="page-170" class="pagenum" title="170"></a>
+seemed to Myra as if Gisela were singing every word to her.
+“Sweet life,” she thought, “beautiful, beloved life!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She felt a feverish longing that filled her heart to overflowing.
+It was a longing without name or object. It was a longing
+for distant lands, a longing for affection. It was a longing for
+glittering fame, for heroic deeds, and a longing, too, for grandmother’s
+quiet garden, for the meadow over which the bees
+hummed.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Your sad and silvern soul</p>
+      <p class="verse">Draws its last gasp in blood.</p>
+      <p class="verse">Alas, that it stands sole,</p>
+      <p class="verse">Alone, by me unfound.</p>
+      <p class="verse">For your soul will be drowned,</p>
+      <p class="verse">Will plunge beyond control,</p>
+      <p class="verse">Sink, drown in burning blood—</p>
+      <p class="verse">Since my cool hand has never found</p>
+      <p class="verse">Your brow to still the fevered flood.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+A shade of almost sorrowful gravity passed over Sophie’s
+beautiful, cheerful features. She smiled, but it seemed as if
+her smile were steeped in melancholy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wait a moment.” She motioned to Gisela with her hand. “I
+want to get Nora. You know how much she loves to listen to
+you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She rose abruptly. John sprang up at the same moment. “Can
+I help you?” he asked, it was a plea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra thought his words sounded mysterious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sophie and John did not enter the large hall-like room from
+which they had come. Sophie opened a glass-door behind a
+curtain which gave upon the night-darkened garden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Leave it open a moment,” she begged. “It is so warm outside.
+We’ll be back this way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gisela hesitated. Some interior struggle was reflected in her
+mobile features.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-171" class="pagenum" title="171"></a>
+“Sophie,” she called, springing down from the high table,
+“would you rather that I came with you? I can sing in the next
+room just as well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no,” said Sophie. She was standing on the step and had
+lifted the two parts of the curtain so that they framed her
+slender figure for a moment. “It is so crowded and smoky in
+there, and dusty from the dancing, and one can’t make the
+whole crowd listen quietly. Besides, I’m glad to have a good
+reason for enticing Nora out for a while. She’d never decide to
+come herself, and if she doesn’t, the evening will be too much
+for her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She nodded gratefully to Gisela and vanished in the darkness.
+Through the half-open door, streamed the manifold fragrances
+of the night and its flowers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Over the little circle lay an expectant silence. Those who
+were sitting side by side made observations in hushed voices.
+Gisela strummed her lute without raising her eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The murmured conversation presently grew louder and somewhat
+more lively, only to subside entirely when heavy steps
+were heard crunching the gravel in the garden. Then the most
+intimate friends of the household began to talk rapidly again
+in a fashion that seemed to say: “We were not waiting for you,
+we shall pay no particular notice to you when you come.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Involuntarily Myra glanced at the garden-door, and though
+she instantly controlled herself, she started and felt that she
+had turned pale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were leading, they were dragging Nora in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sophie was supporting her on one side, John on the other.
+But they could not raise her heavy upper body; it sagged forward
+as if it were bent, broken. With an effort Nora raised her
+head, and her soft brown eyes, filled with silent suffering, like
+those of an injured animal, met Myra’s for a second.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ulrich moved up a chair, Will set down cushions for her feet;
+an instant later she was sitting in her easy-chair, her hands
+<a id="page-172" class="pagenum" title="172"></a>
+laid upon its arms, her knees, which were drawn up a little
+higher than most people’s, covered by the lightly flowing folds
+of her silken veils, her fair head laid back upon a violet-colored
+cushion. Again a picture of almost queenly beauty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not unless one observed closely, was a slight twitching discernible
+around her mouth and cheeks—from pain or the unusually
+violent exertion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra’s heart was quite filled with contradictory feelings. She
+felt a terror that verged on horror and even aversion; an anguish
+of sympathy, but at the same time, a fear as of dark veils
+falling, of a slowly settling, unbearable burden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Had not life been simply bright and gay and alluring? Had
+she not loved it with a hot, longing, ardent, sacrificing love?
+And was it not now as if a fiery and flexible dancer, the swaying
+of whose arms had intoxicated her, suddenly had torn the
+mask from his face, and with a mocking grin pointed to a fleshless
+death’s head?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What was there in the world after all? What could one expect
+from life? Misery and affliction, sickness and death, and bitter,
+freezing solitude....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gisela plucked several chords and began to sing.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Somewhere</p>
+      <p class="verse">The alarm rings dull and heavily.</p>
+    </div>
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Somewhere,</p>
+      <p class="verse">It says, home-going tolls for me.</p>
+    </div>
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Somewhere</p>
+      <p class="verse">The long white roads lead well away;</p>
+    </div>
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Somewhere</p>
+      <p class="verse">Will lead me home to earth, some day.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+She bowed her head lower over her instrument. It was strange
+how the tones found their way out of her restricted breast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-173" class="pagenum" title="173"></a>
+Everyone was silent when she had finished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Will was the first to speak. “More, more,” he cried. “Another,
+another!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Others shouted after him. Gisela slipped down from the table
+and laid the lute in a corner. Her weary movements were those
+of a child, but her face, which was always narrow, had become
+old and small.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I believe I cannot sing any more,” she said, as if asking forgiveness.
+Her voice was no more than a hoarse whisper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Through the door of the adjoining room came an elderly fat
+man with an ugly, bloated face. Inside, someone was thumping
+the piano, but it could hardly be heard for the noise and laughter
+and the shuffling of dragging feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fat man seized little John around the body with a firm
+grip. “Come, Johnnie boy, we’ll dance,” he cried and pulled
+him about in a circle. John swayed from his hips like a coquettish
+girl. Myra observed for the first time that above his small
+and narrow foot in its low-cut patent-leather pumps, he was
+wearing open-work silk stockings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly she loathed him. She loathed the fat man. She
+loathed Gisela because her face looked old and sick and worn
+out. She loathed Will because he spattered wine down Mara
+Luigi’s low-neck dress, and then ran his hand down her back
+on the pretext that he was drying her. She loathed Mara Luigi
+because she was pleased by the performance although she
+shrieked and kicked and struggled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt a terrible longing for the peaceful solitude of her
+own room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Giesbert was standing before her, asking her to dance with
+him. She pressed with both hands against his arms which were
+seeking to clasp her and carry her away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Please, don’t,” she said, impatient but pleading. “Don’t,
+don’t, please, I don’t like it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly, after she had released herself and was swaying a
+<a id="page-174" class="pagenum" title="174"></a>
+little dizzily, her glance came to rest on Eccarius’ face. He approached
+her with a gentle smile, and involuntarily she extended
+her hand to him. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she would
+have liked to say. “I want to go home!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then it occurred to her that she had no right to command
+him as she would a servant, when she had not given him a
+thought the whole evening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But before she had found anything to say, he spoke himself.
+“You look tired, Miss Rudloff. I don’t want to hurry you, if you
+still wish to stay here. But if you would like to go, simply say
+so.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was heartily grateful to him, although she had again
+been almost shocked by his ugliness as he suddenly appeared
+before her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was not entirely satisfied with herself. It must be her own
+fault that she was always seeing ugly and pathetic things everywhere.
+Probably she was not strong enough for life, not healthy
+enough, not stupid, or perhaps not wise, enough.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Everywhere life had angles and edges, points and sharp corners.
+Wherever one groped among the rosy, shimmering clouds
+that so beautifully enveloped them, one was struck and hurt.
+One had to be a cobble-stone or a diamond not to be shattered
+by their hardness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She walked after Eccarius in an almost stony silence. Let him
+think what he would of her! She was tired and upset, angry
+and dispirited. She had no desire to torment herself further with
+a laboredly indifferent conversation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eccarius allowed her time to cool her feverishly hot forehead
+in the night air. She gazed up at the bright flames of the stars
+and again, as always, felt the need to spread her folded wings,
+to launch herself at last, at last into the infinite; so impatient
+was she that her heart was depressed, her breathing labored,
+and there was an aching against her ribs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finally, after a long time, she heard a quiet voice beside her
+<a id="page-175" class="pagenum" title="175"></a>
+utter what seemed to be the last link in a long chain of thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You will do me a great favor, Miss Rudloff, if you do not
+pass judgment upon your hostesses and their house because of
+this evening’s rather”—he hesitated—“rather turbulent festivities.
+You must sit out there in their garden with them some
+quiet afternoon and talk with both ladies. I am quite certain
+that you might gain much by it, and it would be a pity if tonight’s
+performance had spoiled your taste for it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt as if she had been looked through and through and
+was a little ashamed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, of course not,” she said with some embarrassment. “I
+was really very charmed by both ladies. I am simply not accustomed
+to such noisy society. Ah, I am really not accustomed
+to sociability at all, and there were simply too many and too
+varied impressions for me. I am suffering a little from a <em>carrousel
+feeling</em>, if you can imagine what that is.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, yes,” Eccarius laughed softly. “I imagine that it is mostly
+dizziness and nausea.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not only,” said Myra, “but music too, music that keeps droning
+on, and a lot of gaiety and a lot of light, a mysterious and
+fascinating gaiety—pearl-bespangled, dazzling decorations behind
+which mysterious, alluring, weird things are concealed—the
+driving power, the machinery, the engine. And out of the
+darkness appear single brightly illuminated faces that keep
+vanishing and reappearing. But above all, above all is the impression
+of a longed-for pleasure that has been tasted till one is
+sick and tired of it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s all right then.” Eccarius smiled as if his thoughts were
+already somewhere else. “You did not know that Nora is an
+invalid?” he inquired after a pause.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said Myra. Then, half involuntarily, as if driven by a
+sense of guilt for which she somehow hoped to atone, she said,
+“Oh, she made me feel so terribly bad!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She has had a very sad life,” said Eccarius, rather reluctantly,
+<a id="page-176" class="pagenum" title="176"></a>
+“but in spite of that, I would not say that she makes me feel
+bad. Somehow I wouldn’t dare say that. It would seem almost
+presumptuous of me. There is so much about the woman that
+compels one’s admiration, so much that is superior to us, so
+much that one can almost envy, that pity, in my opinion, hardly
+enters into the case.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt that his remark was worded very discreetly in order
+that she might understand, though not too harshly or emphatically,
+that she had said something stupid. She was grateful to
+him for his considerateness, for it hurt her dreadfully to be corrected
+by anyone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At any rate, I will make every effort to know her better,”
+she said with a hearty determination. “I believe that there is
+much to be learned from her, and there is nothing I need more
+in this world than to learn.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is already a great deal simply to know that,” said Eccarius
+with a smile. “Most young people of twenty think they know
+enough. If you always pick your instructresses with as sure an
+instinct, you can’t go far wrong.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hope so.” Myra knitted her brows. Fear again cast its
+shadow on her like a cloud, fear of making a misstep, of becoming
+bewildered, of straying into treacherous morasses, of walking
+into an abyss—courting disaster in some form or other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In any case, I won’t have to suffer any long-drawn death,”
+she thought, “when my shattered limbs are lying at the bottom
+of the abyss. Then there will be nothing left for me but Olga’s
+bequest—my friend, the revolver!”
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-12">
+<a id="page-177" class="pagenum" title="177"></a>
+XII
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+For the third time during one of her walks, Myra suddenly
+found herself, on that corner in the suburbs, on which stood
+Sophie’s little house. But this time she did not turn quickly in
+the opposite direction. Instead, she walked down a street flooded
+with late autumn sunlight, quite bathed in whiteness except
+for the thin tremulous shadows cast by the delicate plumage of
+the young mountain-ashes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra no longer remembered the number, but it would not be
+difficult to discover the house. It must be the third to the right.
+Yes, the garden-gate bore a rather striking name-plate, and
+above the arbor the little pennant was hanging limply in the
+motionless air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra’s heart beat somewhat faster as she opened the little
+grille-gate. She was as embarrassed as she had been as a child
+when she had to go to strange houses and knock on strange
+doors. If she walked right into the garden they would stare at
+her in some surprise. No one would remember her name, no
+one would recall her face, they would ask her what right she
+had to force her way in here. Oh, she would create a very painful
+situation for herself and others.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It would certainly be better to climb the short flight of steps
+to the front entrance and give one’s card to the maid. Then
+they could bundle her off with a polite remark if they no longer
+remembered her. Hesitantly, she retraced a few steps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But they must already have seen her, or heard the crunching
+of the gravel—a blonde head appeared behind the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, Miss Rudloff!” Little John literally sprang forward to
+meet her. And for the first few moments she forgot all that she
+<a id="page-178" class="pagenum" title="178"></a>
+had heard about him, all that she had thought about him, and
+was captivated by his boyish charm, by the lightness of his
+movements which were like a dancer’s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How nice of you to come! No, no, right this way, there’s no
+need to go through the house. We’ve spoken of you frequently,
+wondering where you were. Nora will be frightfully glad to see
+you. Sophus still has something to do, but she’ll be down any
+moment.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He led her past a green wall where the first plump beans
+were hanging between countless red and white flowers. In the
+narrow beds phlox and asters were a riot of dazzling colors.
+They were surrounded by a golden-green border of fragrant
+mignonette. In the big hexagonal arbor a cozy tea-table was
+spread.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra also experienced a slight unconfessed fear of meeting
+Nora again. Now she was almost gratefully surprised by her
+beauty and by the commanding nobility of her movements.
+Nora was so accustomed to her ailment that it never even occurred
+to her to make an attempt to rise only to have to sink
+back helpless and pitiable in her chair. She sat a little stiffly and
+very regally, extending her hand to Myra with a winning smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beside her sat Ulrich Zeeden, who in his haste to spring up
+and come out from behind the table imperilled the tea service,
+which caused both John and Myra to clutch frantically at it.
+The result was a merry confusion which got them over the first
+few moments of what might have been painful formality, and
+the conversation became general and lively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a few moments Sophie, too, emerged from the house with
+a long, quick stride. She greeted Myra very cordially, demanding
+a cup of tea “right away.” She insisted on drinking it standing,
+only to let them force her into a chair where she chatted
+for a quarter of an hour, declaring anxiously every two minutes,
+“Oh, children, the light is forsaking me, I must get back to
+work!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-179" class="pagenum" title="179"></a>
+When she finally dashed off, she turned at the house and
+called back, “If you’ll just wait there until I’m through, I’ll
+have another hour of joy tonight. I’ve worked so hard today.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You forgot to add, ‘at my mournful occupation,’” John
+laughed after her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, at my mournful occupation,” she called from the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why mournful occupation?” asked Myra, puzzled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She always says that she’s next in line after the undertaker
+and the funeral parlor,” John explained. “She makes gravestones.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, that really is mournful,” said Myra, endeavoring to assume
+a slight smile so that they would not think her exaggeratedly
+sentimental. The words “grave” and “death” were always
+a stab of pain to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One accustoms one’s self to death,” said Nora gravely, “as
+to everything else. And that is well. One becomes a little brutal—which
+is a very good thing for us hyper-sensitives. We come
+to feel as much at home among urns and sorrowing angels, as
+a coffin manufacturer at the sight of a coffin, or a physician at
+the sight of a wound. When one has as much to do with death
+as Sophie, and through her I, death loses all its horror, and one
+comes to see the humor in tragic situations. Ask Sophie, she will
+tell you some stories of her profession.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Nora took her needle-work from a little basket beside her,
+and asked John to call the maid to clear the table. John begged
+like a child to be allowed to do it himself, and skilfully and
+carefully removed all the dishes. When he returned, he sat silent
+for a long while, his longing eyes fastened on Nora’s flying fingers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last, he could restrain his childish desire no longer, and
+he stretched out his hands. “Oh, please, please, let me stitch a
+little, too!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a smile Nora handed him the sewing and searched
+<a id="page-180" class="pagenum" title="180"></a>
+her basket for some crocheting with which to keep her own
+hands busy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Gracious,” cried Myra, “that wonderful hemstitching!
+Aren’t you afraid?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, no,” Nora assured her, “John can sew quite as well as
+I.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can, can’t I,” said John, a blush of pride mantling his
+cheeks. “I should have been an expert embroiderer or a miniature
+painter. I have an inexhaustible patience for such things.
+Otherwise, I have no patience at all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He bent his head over his work so that his wavy blonde hair
+fell over his face. His slender, almost too well manicured hands
+moved with charm and precision, setting stitch beside stitch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was an astonishing scene. Involuntarily the thought flashed
+through Myra’s mind, “Thank God, he’s not my son. If he were,
+I think I’d tear that embroidery from his hands and slap his
+ears with it. And yet—he looks like a painted angel or a saint.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+John had to go before Sophie returned. He waited for her
+until the last moment, then said a hasty, but cordial, good-bye,
+and leaving many greetings for Sophie, dashed off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ulrich Zeeden gazed after him, shaking his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A strange little fellow,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A heart of gold,” added Nora with a slight note of defense
+in her tone. “We’ve grown so used to him here, we can hardly
+get along without him. He’s really like a loyal little page, always
+anxious to please and be kind—ah, much more than that,
+he’s inexhaustibly good-hearted and self-sacrificing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, there are some really fabulous rumors of his good-heartedness
+going the rounds.” The corner of Ulrich Zeeden’s
+mouth twitched a little contemptuously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There <em>are</em> many rumors circulating about him—unfortunately,”
+Myra burst forth. She felt her cheeks burning with
+embarrassment, but she was determined, now she had spoken,
+<a id="page-181" class="pagenum" title="181"></a>
+to defend her cause courageously. “It looks so ugly, so gossipy,
+to discuss someone the moment he has turned his back. But
+because he’s your friend and because I think he’s very nice, it
+makes me angry when people say horrible things about him,
+and I have absolutely no right to tell them to hold their tongues
+or to punish them for their lies.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Would you do that?” asked Ulrich Zeeden. “It would be
+very courageous and really friendly of you, but in most cases
+I’m afraid it wouldn’t be very successful. For whatever horrible
+things may be said, they are certainly surpassed by the horrible
+things that are done in private, of which no one has any
+idea.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that true?” Myra turned imploringly to Nora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, my child,” she said comfortingly, “it is much too complicated
+and bewildering for one to be able simply to say yes
+or no. But there’s no reason to have such a desperate look in
+your eyes. Good and evil are so intertwined that one can never
+hope to disentangle them and balance one against the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I will tell you one thing, for I know very well what Myra
+means by horrible things, and you, too, Ulrich. You mean the
+affair with Drencker. People say and you know that it is true,
+Ulrich, and so do I, if I must be candid—that Drencker has
+bought the little fellow body and soul, so to speak; that he has
+furnished a charming apartment for him, that he supports him,
+‘provides’ for him, as they say. That Drencker does not do all
+this simply to rid himself of his millions in a good cause, all of
+us know. And that our good John has not attached himself to
+this, to put it mildly, decidedly unpleasant gentleman, like Alcibiades
+to Socrates, for the purpose of drinking wisdom from
+his lips, but merely for a pecuniary advantage, is also obvious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nevertheless, when one looks a little deeper, one discovers
+something that atones for all these horrible facts. Ever since he
+was a child, little John has felt a great and unswerving love,
+or rather a kind of devout infatuation, for a school-fellow of his
+<a id="page-182" class="pagenum" title="182"></a>
+who possesses everything which he himself lacks—manliness,
+self-assurance, a somewhat brutal quality. This childhood devotion
+became an utterly unselfish, utterly idolatrous friendship.
+Now it happens, that the other boy possesses decided
+talent, which further compels John’s admiration. Neither of
+them had any money. John had probably never thought of
+himself as worth very much—he sold himself, sold himself with
+open eyes and very dearly, too, in order to enable his friend to
+study, in order to be able to support him in this way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And Will Kraft allowed him to do that? You mean he acquiesced
+in such a thing?” asked Ulrich Zeeden sharply, drawing
+out his words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nora shrugged her shoulders slightly. “I did not mention
+any names.” There was a trace of bitterness in her gentle voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What has Will Kraft allowed? What has he acquiesced in?”
+Sophie’s deep resonant voice suddenly rang out close beside
+them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ve been slandering your friend, Sophus.” Nora smiled
+up at her. “You’ve come just in the nick of time to defend
+him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Defend him if you can,” said Zeeden in a harsh, censorious
+tone. “Will Kraft has allowed a young, immature and rather
+unstable young man, whose friend he is supposed to be, to
+sell himself to satisfy the unnatural lusts of a beast in human
+form, and has accepted the purchase price. To me that is about
+the lowest thing that anybody could do—just as I find a whore-master
+a good deal more contemptible than a whore.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Indeed!” Sophie drew up a chair and sat down. “I’ve let you
+have your say, now you let me have mine. In the first place, instead
+of ‘beast in human form,’ you might say ‘human in beast’s
+form’—though that has only incidentally to do with ‘my
+friend’, Will Kraft. But I can muster a few points in his defense,
+too. Notably, that he has talent, not to say genius, and
+<a id="page-183" class="pagenum" title="183"></a>
+that talent always and under all circumstances has the right
+to achieve its object. Because work alone is of value, not life.
+Least of all the moral life of the individual.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is a matter of opinion,” interrupted Zeeden, “nevertheless,
+continue!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But even if he were without talent, if he could create no
+work of any value, whom is he injuring? The possibility is
+given him to work, as he imagines, and as I imagine, for human
+culture. He is happy. Still happier is old Drencker, who
+finds himself at the goal of all his desires, having at last escaped
+the danger of blackmailers and extortioners, and even robbers
+and murderers, whose life is no longer embittered by the fear
+of prison, and who for the first time is beginning to feel the
+blessedness of those millions that all his life long have been
+only a curse to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But the happiest of all is undoubtedly our little John. He is
+desired, pampered, idolized. He sees his beauty, which incidentally
+he knows very well how to prize, in the right setting.
+He spends half the day seated before his three-leaf mirror, admiring
+himself, and coddling himself with salves and powders
+and hair tonics. Do you mean to tell me he is doing all that for
+Will Kraft’s sake? Don’t imagine it! He would do exactly
+the same thing without Will Kraft! No, not exactly the same,
+for he certainly has a better side, a tendency to idealism. He
+would do it remorsefully without Will, and be disgusted at himself.
+But since he can expend a portion of the sums which are
+earned by him (for a person of his nature really without effort)
+on someone whom he adores, he can view himself in quite a
+transfiguring light. He can do just what he pleases and be a
+martyr and a saint into the bargain!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zeeden moved his hands as if he were clapping an inaudible
+applause. “A beautiful speech, dear Sophus! Hearing your explanation,
+makes it bearable. But there’s a flaw in it somewhere.
+<a id="page-184" class="pagenum" title="184"></a>
+I don’t know just where. Perhaps it’s in defective Christianity
+again. But I think Nora is shivering, it’s time that we
+went into the house. The evenings are already quite cool.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra rose. “Yes, and it’s high time that I went home, too. I
+intended to stay for a few moments and I sit here hours and
+hours.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bosh!” said Sophie, remaining quietly seated, and staring
+up at her almost as if surprised. “That sounds like a <span class="language" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">façon de
+parler</span>. Why do you want to go? Have you something better in
+mind? Or did somebody once tell you that a first visit should
+never last more than twenty minutes?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, somebody did tell me that!” laughed Myra. “I think
+those are the very words my Aunt Emily said to me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And do you mean to say that you have the damnable intention
+of carrying out all your Aunt Emily’s precepts? I
+thought not, well, don’t try them on us! Whatever aunts tell
+you, you should <span class="language" lang="la" xml:lang="la">eo ipso</span> do the reverse! So you’ll stay and eat
+with us. The only excuse is the well-known ‘something better
+to do.’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s nothing that I’d like to do better in all the world.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Poor child—well, there will be.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sophie rose and drew herself up energetically. “I can feel my
+muscles today! Come, Norina, let’s make things bright and
+comfortable inside. It’s already decided that you’ll remain, Uli.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zeeden bowed in silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With one powerful push, Sophie moved the table aside to
+clear the way for Nora. With a sudden resoluteness which she
+herself could not explain, Myra pressed close to the invalid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“May I help?” She thought they must hear the throbbing of
+her heart in her voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, thank you so much—I will be too heavy for you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not at all, I am very strong. And if one does not need any
+particular practice, believe me, it would gratify my ambitions! I
+<a id="page-185" class="pagenum" title="185"></a>
+could feel that there’s something in this world for which I am
+useful.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is an unanswerable argument,” said Sophie. “Will
+you call Martha, then, Ulrich? Or will you be good enough to
+carry the chair yourself?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zeeden had already picked up the chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Really, why don’t you have a wheel-chair?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you going to ask me that, too?” Sophie flung angrily
+over her shoulder. “Because this lady must walk! And she can
+do it very well, too. She has the soundest pair of legs in the
+world. But she’s too vain. If she weren’t, she could walk for
+miles.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pressure of the invalid’s arm did not weigh unbearably
+on Myra’s supporting hands. And the feeling that she was
+helping overcame her horror to such an extent that even pity
+disappeared. This gentle woman’s desperation over her ruined
+hampered body had long ago been dispelled, so that her life
+now knew only its good and bad moments like every one’s else.
+With more good and less bad, perhaps, for her illness shielded
+her from the fiercest attacks of base natures; she almost never
+left the house, in which she was treated as a queen, while no
+one who was not filled with the friendliest of feelings, ever
+came to see her.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+As they were sitting together after the meal, over a cup of tea
+and cigarettes, Gisela suddenly appeared. Myra could not decide
+just what she felt when she first saw her. She was glad that
+Gisela had come. At the same time she was disturbed at the
+idea of being jolted out of her comfortable repose even by a
+pleasure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the first time Myra endeavored to isolate the cause of
+that disturbing quality which everyone felt in the presence of
+Gisela. She was not noisy, not even particularly talkative. She
+<a id="page-186" class="pagenum" title="186"></a>
+would sit without ever stirring from her place, staring in front
+of her. And yet it seemed as if the atmosphere around her vibrated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt this vibration in every nerve, felt her quiet repose
+being more and more encroached upon by this burning, prickling,
+disquieting sensation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It began to seem to her as if the smiling resignation on Nora’s
+face were merely a mask behind which the cruelest despair
+was at work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed to her as if Sophie bore up in vain, with the
+strength and repose of a caryatid, against the intolerable burden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed to her as if Ulrich Zeeden’s deliberate manner
+cloaked a ceaseless torturing struggle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed to her as if Gisela were as consumed by pain and
+sorrow as a house in which the flames are raging, and whose
+blackened walls threaten at every moment to crash into complete
+ruin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And it seemed to her as if she, Myra, were the most unfortunate
+of all these unfortunate creatures since Olga was dead
+and she was left alone in the world. In a world, too, filled with
+strange, menacing, pain-bringing, terrifying things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly she wanted to go home because it seemed to
+her as if her hostesses were struggling against their weariness
+out of a sense of politeness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zeeden and Gisela left with her and they walked without
+speaking for some time. Zeeden broke the long silence to address
+himself to Myra, and to Myra only, “May I take you
+home, Miss Rudloff?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank you very much,” said Myra, “but only provided you
+live in that neighborhood. I am not at all afraid of going by myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gisela leaned forward in order to speak past Myra. “Don’t
+put yourself out in the slightest, Herr Zeeden. And it would
+<a id="page-187" class="pagenum" title="187"></a>
+put you out a great deal if you had to go into the city again and
+then return to your lodgings. I will take Miss Rudloff home.
+Besides we’re going the same way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra hesitated a moment, wondering whether she ought to
+protest this arrangement. It displeased her to have Zeeden
+think she had declined his escort in order to be alone with Gisela.
+But if she asked him to go with her now, Gisela would
+be offended. She said nothing, telling herself with a quiet defiance
+that people’s opinions were and must be indifferent to
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zeeden took leave of them at the next corner, though somewhat
+more stiffly and formally than usual.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you like him?” asked Gisela when he was scarcely out
+of hearing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hardly know him.” Myra shrugged her shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He certainly likes you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why?” Myra laughed between her teeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why? He likes all the women I like. That’s why he can’t
+bear me,” she added quickly, almost hurriedly. “That is to say,
+he’s unlucky with all women, and has never been able to free
+himself from one dreadful specimen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How is it possible for him not to free himself from a dreadful
+woman if he feels in himself the capacity for loving others?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You ask me?” Gisela shrugged her shoulders noncommittally.
+“They say that she used to beat him till he bled and that
+he can’t live without that! But he may have some other mania
+which she pampered, too. After all, what does bind people
+together? The fact that one of them knows the other’s concealed
+manias, and fattens them and coaxes them forth and
+fondles them and trains them to turn against their former
+master like a mad dog.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And you mean to say that that is the crux of all human
+relation?” asked Myra sadly, much perturbed. “What kind of
+eyes do you see life with?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-188" class="pagenum" title="188"></a>
+“With unclouded eyes,” said Gisela and laughed bitterly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And Sophie?” asked Myra, “and Nora?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sophie’s mania is called Nora. And she is the happiest person
+I know because she can concentrate completely on her
+mania. As for Nora? What goes on in her mind, nobody knows.
+I don’t even know if she is happy or not.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know if she can be happy,” said Myra dejectedly.
+“It must be dreadful always to have to take, never to give.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She knows that she gives a great deal,” Gisela contradicted.
+“Everything for Sophie! Sophie became a human being for the
+first time the day Nora went to live with her. She was lazy and
+idle and slovenly and lived on cigarettes, alcohol and cocaine.
+We tried time and again to shake her out of it—but it did no
+good.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And Nora,” asked Myra with bated breath, “was she sick
+then?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When she came here? Yes, of course—I think she had made
+an attempt on her life. She married a syphilitic and had a feeble-minded
+child, or something like that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“World, world,” thought Myra, “where can I fly from you?
+I’d rather be dead and sleep in one of Sophie’s beautiful, rose-garlanded
+urns! How can I, all by myself, ever stand all that
+makes up human destiny?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They walked along in silence for a time, each plunged in
+his own thoughts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you know, Myra Rudloff, that I have a mania of my
+own?” Gisela asked suddenly; her voice was softer and more
+vibrant than usual.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was frightened. She was afraid of confessions. “Good
+God,” she thought, “here comes the morphine! What shall I
+say to her? I can’t help her in any way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gisela did not wait for an answer. “My mania,” she said,
+in a soft, hovering tone, without glancing at Myra, without
+turning her head in her direction, “is to love beautiful, pure,
+<a id="page-189" class="pagenum" title="189"></a>
+regal women—always those who are above me, those who are
+too good for me, who in my own opinion are too good for me.
+Women like you, Myra Rudloff!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They had reached the house and stopped. Myra was racking
+her brain in torment for a reply. She could think of none. She
+gave her hand to Gisela, shyly, and said, “I thank you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The corner of Gisela’s mouth twitched in a hurt, ironic smile.
+“What for?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For bringing me home—and for everything, for what you
+have just said, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra’s heart was throbbing as if it would burst, but only from
+a kind of embarrassment. She would have been glad to retract
+her words. Perhaps it would have been more tactful if she had
+pretended not to hear or not to understand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gisela turned her head away with an impulsive, rather irritated
+movement. The light from the street lamp fell on her
+face; it looked wretched, sorrowful, almost decayed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perhaps it would make her happy if I kissed her,” thought
+Myra. “It is sad enough, but it can’t hurt anybody.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She bent forward with a slight, embarrassed smile and laid
+her lips against Gisela’s. She felt Gisela’s lips burn like a flame,
+open like a flower; sharp teeth ground against hers and were
+pressed into her lips. A small hand clasped her neck, twisted
+itself into her hair, would not release her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Myra drew herself up again, she was somewhat dizzy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t love her,” she thought sadly, “probably she loves me,
+and I don’t love her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good night,” she said, laying her hand tenderly and discreetly
+against Gisela’s cheek for a moment. It was as if she
+were speaking to a little child. “Sleep tight.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Myra intended to lie down on her divan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Though it was still early in the afternoon, she had lighted
+the lamp and drawn the curtains in order not to have to see
+<a id="page-190" class="pagenum" title="190"></a>
+how the endless autumnal rain poured down the gray walls of
+the buildings opposite.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had heaped up cushions and covers on the divan, moved
+a chair within reach on which was a pile of books. The afternoon
+would be long and she wished to have no cause to get up
+again. Neither did she want to drown herself hour after hour
+in one book. So she had collected a half dozen books with the
+pleasurable foretaste of a gourmand preparing himself for an
+exceptional repast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the little glass-topped table at the head of the divan, she
+set cigarettes, chocolate and a vase with a few pale pink, pungent
+carnations that she had bought in town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But no sooner had she lain down, drawn a light cover over
+her feet, and reached for the topmost book when there came a
+knock on the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why didn’t I lock the door,” she thought for a moment in
+vexation. “If I had, I would certainly never move. Whoever is
+there could rattle it as much as he likes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But when in response to her “Come in!” Gisela opened the
+door, she was really glad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, how nice it is here!” cried Gisela before she had even
+said good day. “No, for Heaven’s sake, don’t jump up from
+there, or I’ll run right off again. You’ve made yourself so nice
+and cozy, don’t let me get you up. I was going to see Mara
+Luigi, but she isn’t home, and I wanted to have a look at your
+room. Heavens, how spick and span we are—my room never
+looks like this even on high holidays.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you don’t want me to get up,” said Myra with a smile—she
+was resting on one elbow, the cover in her other hand,
+still in the act of springing up—“you’ll have to come here.
+Otherwise I’ll have to put on the light and settle you solemnly
+in an easy-chair.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no, I’m coming.” Gisela ran to the divan, pressed Myra
+<a id="page-191" class="pagenum" title="191"></a>
+back against the cushions and drew the cover up about her
+chin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you want to go to sleep, my love? Shall I sing you to
+sleep and then steal out on tiptoe? Sleep, little baby, sleep!”
+She knelt on one knee on the divan, clasped Myra about her
+shoulders and rocked her to and fro.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra experienced a slight and not at all unpleasant dizzying
+sensation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t,” she said with her eyes closed, “I’m getting dizzy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She felt the rocking movement stop, and at the same time
+a gentle breath, and soft lips brush very lightly, very tenderly,
+over her forehead, her cheeks, her eyelids.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was pleasant, but she resisted this pleasant sensation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t love her,” she thought obstinately. “I did not desire
+her lips—this is the way an animal must feel when it is stroked.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The soft lips ceased to brush her face and Gisela crouched
+down on the divan. Quite irrelevantly she pointed to the flowers.
+“Who sent you the lovely carnations?” she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra turned her head to follow Gisela’s gesture with her
+eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I did,” she smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you mean?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do I mean? I bought them myself this morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s strange!” Gisela shook her head. “Are you expecting
+a visitor?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, why?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Because that would be the only reason I’d ever buy flowers
+for my room.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In fact, I bought them because I expected to be alone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s very nice of you not to say ‘because I hoped....’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra smiled. “Well then, because I feared I would be alone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s just a polite lie,” said Gisela. “Anyhow, I’m thankful
+that I’m at least worth a lie to you. For I think you don’t lie
+very often.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-192" class="pagenum" title="192"></a>
+“I don’t know.” Myra reflected seriously. “I think that I lied
+a good deal as a child, at least as long as I was in the hands of
+my mentors. But it was cheerless and unimaginative living.
+I never had much talent at thinking up interesting tales. It was
+more a kind of denying, very persistent and obstinate.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Lying and denying—there are worlds between. You are
+quite right. But when a child denies, everybody says, it’s lying,
+or it’s deceiving. And all the while it’s probably just ashamed,
+or stubborn, or bewildered. I was treated so terribly when I
+was a child. Why don’t you have children? You’d certainly
+make a fine, understanding mother.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve never thought about it.” Myra shrugged her shoulders.
+“I’ve always imagined that every mother is good and understanding.
+But that may very well be because I never knew
+my own mother.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gisela laughed bitterly. “I wish I’d never known mine
+either!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was shocked and seized Gisela’s hand. “It sounds dreadful
+when you talk that way! Was she so bad?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bad? Oh, no, not just bad.” There was a note of forced
+lightness in her voice. “She was a worthy, efficient, excellent
+woman. Too worthy and efficient for my father. He left her
+and two years later hanged himself. And since I resembled
+him (naturally I couldn’t do anything about it; after all, she
+chose him for a husband, I didn’t choose him for a father)—but
+because I resembled my father’s family, my mother felt
+that I was hereditarily tainted in advance. You know, there are
+people—and my mother was one of them—who are so moral
+that they sniff immorality everywhere. We had to sleep with
+our hands outside the quilt, and if we forgot in our sleep, and
+my mother came in to check up, she’d tear the covers off the
+bed. I swear, I never once knew why she did it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra did not know either, but she did not ask, because she
+<a id="page-193" class="pagenum" title="193"></a>
+was ashamed to confess her ignorance, and furthermore she
+suspected that an explanation might be painful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That was the beginning.” Gisela sprang up and began to
+pace restlessly to and fro, with noiseless steps, on the thick
+carpet. “And it went on that way. At fourteen I had my first
+rendezvous. It was with a boy from dancing-school, a little fellow
+who was, if possible, more innocent and idealistic than
+myself. When this transgression came to light, I was subjected
+to a terrifying inquisition. Had we kissed, did we put our arms
+around one another, and when and where and how. These
+possibilities were first brought to my attention in this way....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The same thing at school. Near the school there was a stationery
+store where we used to buy our copy-books. The man
+had picture post-cards in his window—among others a nude
+woman, the reproduction of some masterpiece or other. A terrible
+case was made out of that post-card. Investigation finally
+brought out which of the girls had stood in front of the shop-window.
+Parents and pupils together descended on the shop-keeper
+and forced him to remove all offensive pictures from his
+window. It became a real sport with us to buy pictures of nudes—during
+the Bible reading they circulated under the desks with
+inscriptions and observations. The contagion spread to the
+whole class, but they had first been inoculated with the virus,
+and at considerable pains, too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In a few among us, perhaps in many, there may have been
+a painfully repressed, immature sensuality. But children are
+by no means as shameless as adults—they are much more afraid
+of being shocked. But the general discussion of the ‘immoral
+picture’ removed all obstacles. Now everybody talked to everybody
+else about ‘it.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I resisted. I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. It
+may be that I resisted out of timidity, because I felt that this
+thing, which was just a joke to the rest of the children, might
+<a id="page-194" class="pagenum" title="194"></a>
+become fate to me. Do you know how children act in such
+cases? Oh, so cruelly, so lustfully, so sadistically! Because I resisted,
+I was pursued, the whole class was in a conspiracy
+against me. I had to see what I didn’t want to see, hear what I
+didn’t want to hear, do what I didn’t want to do. I was driven
+to a pass from which I never again escaped.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She folded her hands and wrung her fingers so that the bones
+cracked as if the thin wrists were going to snap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, how can anybody buy herself flowers like that?” she
+said suddenly, standing before the carnations. “Why do you
+do it? Were you thinking of somebody to whom you wanted to
+give them? But didn’t—perhaps, well, because you happened
+to be put out with one another just then?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have no one in the world to whom I might give flowers,”
+said Myra bitterly, “unless it is a grave, and that’s too far away.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She did not know herself how she came to say it. She blushed
+violently at the thought that she was opening her heart, an
+error which she forgave in others with a certain condescending
+indulgence, but which she hated so intensely that she would be
+upset for weeks if she caught herself at it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But perhaps it was not even a need to open her heart. Perhaps
+it was worse. Perhaps it was the desire—though still quite
+unconscious—to drape herself with this holy, destructive sorrow,
+to endow herself with a new mystical charm in the eyes of
+this ... this....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed as if Gisela divined the feeling. She had started as
+if she meant to throw herself upon Myra, to overwhelm her
+with sympathy and comfort and affection—but checked herself
+and sat hunched over on the end of the divan, her head
+bowed, her hands folded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Promise me one thing,” she said softly with a quality in her
+voice as of joylessness which nothing could ever animate again.
+“When I am dead, put flowers on my grave. Not at my funeral
+and not a large bought wreath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-195" class="pagenum" title="195"></a>
+“I like to imagine how I’ll receive visits, how I’ll lie there
+and sleep. I love graveyards so—generally those that are a little
+run down. I don’t want any well-groomed gaudy grave—but
+a gray stone, half sunk already and half overgrown with ivy.
+Then the beautiful woman in the white dress who stops before
+it will think of me for a moment, not with grief, but with a
+gentle melancholy, and will strew a handful of flowers over
+me. I’ll feel them, oh, make no mistake, I’ll feel them!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra sat up and taking her by both shoulders, shook her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Child!” she said. “Are you asking <em>me</em> to do that? I’ll hand
+on the commission to my grandchild! By the time that stone
+has sunken on your grave, my ashes will have long been scattered
+by the wind.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How long does it take a stone to sink?” asked Gisela in
+such a comically impatient and plaintive tone that Myra
+laughed aloud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But you’re not dead and buried yet,” she said consolingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Unfortunately,” Gisela said in a lifeless voice but with suddenly
+flashing eyes. There was bitterness in the words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again Myra felt a slight aversion. “She has no right to say
+that,” she thought. “She certainly can’t have suffered so terribly....
+But then, who can estimate what gives another the
+right to desperation? Perhaps it is much harder to struggle
+against one’s self than against fate.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her objection melted and she felt only a warm but helpless
+pity. With timid hands she began to stroke the soft, tangled,
+dark hair from the white forehead before her. Those burning
+eyes were shut, while on that narrow face appeared the
+expression of quiet, yearning bliss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Gisela sat motionless, without breathing, as if her pulse
+had stopped in her veins, Myra experienced a weird sensation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Open your eyes,” she commanded in a frightened voice.
+“I suppose it’s this devilish violet light, but you look like a marble
+death mask.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-196" class="pagenum" title="196"></a>
+The long lids opened heavily. The wide-open eyes were a
+lightless deep abyss to which life and vision returned gradually.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Believe me, little Myra,” she said with her soft ailing child’s
+voice, “I will soon be dead.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do the words ‘be dead’ mean to you?” asked Myra
+timidly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A deep, cool, undisturbed repose.” She closed her eyes, and
+immediately her face resembled a marble mask again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Eternal rest. Even in my childhood the words were like a
+melody, a sweet mysterious seductive song. I heard it the first
+time when I was quite small and had no ideas about it. It was
+a characteristic expression of my mother. This or that person
+had gone to his eternal rest. And it has never forsaken me, I
+have always longed to go to my eternal rest.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In her high voice was a sustained disembodied tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a sparkle and glitter under those dark eyelashes
+that were like shadows on her face, and several pearly drops
+trickled down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra kept both her hands clasped around Gisela’s blue-veined
+temples.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” she said, without herself knowing what that “no”
+might mean. “No, no, no!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lids were raised like a curtain, and the tear-filled eyes
+in which the light was refracted, seemed larger and more burning
+than ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said Gisela. “No, no, no! Still no eternal rest, little
+Myra, sweet, beautiful little Myra! Life streams from your finger-tips,
+life flowers from your lips, life gleams from your eyes.
+I feel as if I were already dead, and you were saying to me:
+‘Arise and walk!’ Oh, how hard it must be to rise up and leave
+a cool and narrow coffin because it pleases some miracle-maker!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am dead, little Myra, I have died of a mortal sickness that
+is called Fiametta. If you would bewitch the dead, little sorceress,
+<a id="page-197" class="pagenum" title="197"></a>
+you must nourish them with your own blood, but that you
+know. If I am to live, I must imbibe your blood.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The slender hands fastened like talons in Myra’s shoulder,
+forcing her back on the cushions. Supine above her, lay Gisela’s
+light muscular body, close to her own hovered Gisela’s
+white face with the burning eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fear, horror, aversion, pity, tenderness and the infatuating
+throb of her own and another’s blood, whirled in a mad maelstrom
+that engulfed all thought in its brightly foaming depths.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-13">
+<a id="page-198" class="pagenum" title="198"></a>
+XIII
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Myra was glad to get out on the street. The keen east wind and
+the rain mixed with hail cut her face and felt good to her. She
+walked so fast that Gisela found it too difficult to keep up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She felt as if she were being grievously insulted on all sides,
+and as if she might avenge herself by letting the rain lash her
+as she hurried through the cold dark night.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Myra and Eccarius walked down a street that echoed with
+the cold and was feathered with a fine frost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you wonder,” asked Eccarius, “why I spoke so ostentatiously
+about my friends at the table? It was because I have
+had a little dispute with Miss Peters. Miss Peters is really a
+splendid person, but somewhat strict in her judgments. Or I
+should rather say, is somewhat limited in her understanding
+of things. What she doesn’t understand she tosses all together
+into one pot and damns eternally. And among such understandable
+things, of course, is included a friendship like that of
+Sophie and Nora. She flung about words like abnormal and
+perverse and unnatural, and intimated that it was no place
+for you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For me?” Myra was astonished. “How on earth did you
+come to be talking of me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To be quite frank, we began with you,” Eccarius explained
+with a laugh that pleaded for forgiveness. “Yes, yes, one never
+knows how important one is to others or what interesting conversation
+one makes. Seriously, we never know who our enemies
+are or who is going to pick us to pieces next. Conversely,
+<a id="page-199" class="pagenum" title="199"></a>
+we don’t know our friends either or who is looking out for our
+weal and woe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Miss Peters has a heart of gold and she is concerned about
+you. She was explaining to me today that it is my duty to open
+your eyes for you. But if I were to open your eyes about Sophie
+and Nora, with the best will in the world I could only tell you
+that they are splendid people.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nora told me recently that she had known you a long time,”
+said Myra with a gently insistent effort to turn the conversation
+from herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A very long time.” She sighed with relief as Eccarius
+changed the subject. “I knew her when she was still the beautiful
+Nora Zeyern, the most popular of dancers, the most daring
+of riders! She had hundreds of suitors, and, out of those hundreds,
+of course, she had to pick Hersfeld!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stopped for a moment with a bitter laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He was diseased, wasn’t he?” asked Myra.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, if you know that much, there’s no indiscretion in my
+telling you more. He was ‘cured’ so-called, as he used proudly
+to relate to anyone who wanted or did not want to listen to
+him. But not to his wife and her family.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hersfeld was an oldest son and he wanted an heir. And an
+heir did arrive, but it was covered with pimples from the day
+it was born. What that most maternal of women suffered with
+that child can never be told. And all of us, his so-called friends,
+we looked at the child and looked at one another and knew that
+it would never be anything else but a child. But not one of us
+dared say a word to the young mother. Meanwhile she hoped
+and hoped and cherished the unhappy little worm, rejoicing
+at the tiniest sign of progress. There wasn’t much progress to
+rejoice at.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At an age when other children were running around, shouting
+and crowing, he would lie on his pillow, hardly turning
+his head when someone shook something bright before his
+<a id="page-200" class="pagenum" title="200"></a>
+eyes. ‘He’ll be a thinker,’ Nora said then, and smiled, a heart-rending
+smile. But when at four years he could not speak a
+word, and would merely utter an incoherent babble, she hid
+him and hid herself from the world. She never left her own
+house, she received no one. She shut herself and her child in
+the most impenetrable solitude. She still cherished him, played
+with him, strove tirelessly and futilely to make something human
+out of him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But Mr. Hersfeld needed an heir. In another six months,
+the unhappy woman was once more in hope—Oh, God, she
+really did hope.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At this point a friendly doctor took the matter in hand.
+That is to say, he let fall a careless, but honestly indignant word
+about the irresponsibility of bringing babies into the world.
+And when she questioned him and would not let him go, he
+asked in great astonishment if she really did not know what
+was wrong with her child. And since she did not, he told her.
+Certainly he was entirely within his rights in doing so. But he
+reproached himself bitterly afterwards. For that very day Nora
+was hurt by a fall from a hay-loft, and suffered such severe internal
+injuries that she was never well again. Whereupon Hersfeld
+procured a divorce!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is he still alive?” asked Myra.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why? You made a face when you asked me that as though
+you intended to kill him if he were. But you can rest easy—he
+is dead. He came to quite a dramatic end, or rather, his end
+had quite a dramatic beginning. Imagine, that man intended
+to marry a second time after he divorced Nora! A beautiful innocent
+young girl from one of the best families. You have no
+idea what qualms of conscience Nora suffered at that time. She
+knew the bride, she knew her parents, and she knew particularly
+Hersfeld, her former husband. But despite the fact that
+she knew him so well, she must still have loved him. Somewhere
+in the innermost recesses of her heart were still the ruins
+<a id="page-201" class="pagenum" title="201"></a>
+of a strong passion. And it seemed a crime to her to accuse the
+man. Besides, everybody would have called it an act of petty
+revenge. On the other hand, it would be a far greater crime to
+let the poor girl make such a marriage out of ignorance.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good God!” said Myra, “did she do it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nora was so helpless, she could scarcely move, and the
+situation was further complicated by the fact that the girl had
+already been in love with Hersfeld while he was married,
+and regarded his wife, if not hostilely, at least with suspicion.
+Nora has often told me that in her desperate dilemma she used
+to pray for a miracle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And the miracle happened. The wedding did not take place—the
+bridegroom did not appear. When they went to fetch
+him, he hid himself in the stable and began shooting with his
+revolver. At last he was overpowered and taken to an institution.
+He lived a few months longer subject to delusions of
+persecution and raving madness. Then he died. Softening of
+the brain. When the cause of his death became known, one of
+his former cronies observed that it was the first time anyone
+suspected Hersfeld of having a brain.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They walked on a while in silence, each wrapped in his own
+thoughts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Eccarius looked up with sudden resolution. Once more
+his face was irradiated by that fugitive, friendly smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But you have got me off my subject very insidiously. I’ve
+told you a long story, but not a word about what I was instructed
+to tell you. And not only instructed, what I want to
+tell you of my own free will....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Must you?” asked Myra with imploring eyes. “Do you
+really believe there is anything you can tell me? I know that
+you mean well by me, and I am grateful to you for it. But I feel
+so strongly—perhaps because I am so young and have just come
+of age—that only I can help myself and that I must help myself.
+I know that I will not always find the best and the shortest
+<a id="page-202" class="pagenum" title="202"></a>
+way, and I haven’t even any goal, or only insofar as it may
+be a goal to want to know life whole, as far as it is possible for
+a woman to do so, its light and its shadowy sides, its merits
+and demerits. Just as one gets to know a person—whom one
+loves!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you love life,” said Eccarius with an accommodating persistence,
+“you must approach it very discreetly. And if you have
+no goal, or only the desire to see as much as possible in the
+paths of your own selecting, then you should be careful not to
+end up in a blind alley from which there is no escape. Don’t be
+angry with me, but I have been guilty of watching you on the
+quiet. I’ve seen you twice a day at least in the last two months.
+In the course of the years I have acquired some little knowledge
+of people, and the impression you make is not that of a person
+who loves life, but of one who is not afraid of death.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was already ringing the door-bell, and she turned to
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that a contradiction? Can’t one do both—love life and not
+be afraid of death? Perhaps they belong together. I will make it
+my motto and write it large over all my days and ways—‘Love
+life and be not afraid of death.’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know a still better motto,” said Eccarius, “it is possible
+to turn the sentence about. Then I will make it my motto.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The maid opened the door. To Myra’s questioning glance
+Eccarius shook his head slightly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Some other time.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+They were sitting together in the early twilight of a winter’s
+day, Nora, Sophie, Eccarius and Myra. It was already dark in
+the room so that it was no longer possible to distinguish the
+features of the person sitting next one. But nobody wanted the
+light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra had asked after John. And Sophie told her with anger
+and perturbation that he was the victim of some very hateful
+<a id="page-203" class="pagenum" title="203"></a>
+gossip. Someone had informed his friend, the fat old Drencker,
+in a very ugly way, that his money was making it possible for
+young Kraft to pursue his studies, or rather that Will Kraft
+was squandering his, Drencker’s, money at cards and on
+women.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nora had defended John. Even though she saw him in no
+very transfiguring light, and his relationship with Drencker
+was always incomprehensible and painful to her, she had never
+ceased to believe that his friendship for Will Kraft was an
+entirely ideal infatuation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And suppose it weren’t!” said Sophie stubbornly. “Whenever
+a human bargain is struck the buyer is to blame. The
+person who sells himself is always in extremity. And it is bad
+enough that it is possible for a rich swine like him to buy a
+share in a human creature. His demand to have him wholly
+and solely to himself is insolence!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Every transaction must be honest!” said Eccarius in his
+gentle, reflective way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” Sophie became excited. “Whoever buys a human being
+with his filthy money for the gratification of his base little
+lusts ought to be deceived. There <em>ought</em> to be things that cannot
+be bought, that really cannot be bought, whether it’s love of
+honor or fame or talent or nobility—the buyer is always the
+first on the scene, thumping his money-bags and commanding,
+‘I want that, do this for me, I can pay.’ It is not until then
+that the commodity appears. Do you suppose that the idea
+would ever enter the head of a poor musician to offer his songs,
+the most precious things he possesses, to a rich money-grubber
+so that they may appear under the latter’s name? No, that idea
+could flower only in the mind of a rich money-grubber.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know many such cases—from the most innocent beginnings
+when the well-fed son of a middle class father has his
+poor, but talented school-mate compose his love letters for him
+for a handful of cigarettes—to those first nights at the opera
+<a id="page-204" class="pagenum" title="204"></a>
+when a gentleman takes his bows as the composer who has
+never written a line of music, and couldn’t write one. Ah, the
+world is a rather disgusting place! One can only be happy by
+having as little to do with it as possible. We sit here on our island,
+eh, Norina? And many as are the ships that touch here,
+they all voyage on again. No one may settle on our domain.
+For the rest, all I have to say is, that Drencker should be
+happy that his fate is not that of the poor fellow who shot himself
+a week ago because a gang of extortioners were slowly throttling
+him, and the unhappy man preferred to be dead than
+always living in the shadow of the jail.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eccarius shook his head. “To think that this medieval punishment
+still exists!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But there must be some protection for children and people
+not yet of age,” Nora declared, “even when those minors happen
+to be over twenty-one. There is a very true saying that
+where there is no accuser, there is no judge. When two mature
+people live with one another, it is no more the concern of any
+official body than is the private life of a married couple. Unfortunately,
+I must say, in most cases. Where there is punishment,
+there must first have been accusation, and where someone
+accuses, he must first feel that he has suffered an injustice.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Paragraph one hundred and sixty-five is a cloak for scoundrels
+and extortioners,” Eccarius objected more vehemently
+than was his wont, “and no protection at all for children of
+whatever age. Children endure in silence and make no accusations.
+When a case does come to light, then the world cries
+out in indignation. But there are thousands of cases of such
+crimes committed against children which never see the light of
+day.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That can’t be possible,” said Sophie, her voice vibrant with
+emotion. “In the whole world there cannot be a thousand monsters
+to whom a child is not something sacred.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eccarius laughed, a harsh, lifeless laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-205" class="pagenum" title="205"></a>
+“I will describe to you one case, one out of thousands. One
+case out of the thousands where the criminal goes unapprehended.
+I knew a family, a well-to-do and respected family,
+clever, kindly parents, who had four healthy, talented children—boys.
+The mother could not take care of the needs of four
+growing boys unassisted, besides it would not have been the
+proper thing to do, so they hired a maid for the lads. A half-educated
+person, as is customary, with an agreeable exterior,
+good references and all possible recommendations. This maid
+delighted in nothing more than to inform the boys of matters
+against which they had been carefully guarded. The unhappy
+children were thus completely under her thumb. They knew
+that they were doing forbidden things. They were tangled up
+in the terrible concept of ‘sin’ and prayed to God for succor.
+The infamous woman had an inexhaustible imagination and
+constantly invented new devices to whip up the resisting and
+jaded children. They became more and more miserable. Everything
+possible was done for them, they were sent to expensive
+baths—accompanied, of course, by their maid. From time to
+time, one of the boys would resolve to confess everything to his
+mother—but he got no farther than the resolve. Such things
+were too frightful to confess to the gentlest of mothers. Perhaps
+you can imagine what kind of ‘childhood’ such children enjoyed.
+Exhausted in body and soul, disinclined to play or work,
+in spite of their talents hardly able to pass through school, living
+in everlasting fear of discovery, of punishment, of sickness,
+of Hell—and never able to withstand their vices, slinking more
+and more like shadows through the days, living only in the
+perilous practices of the night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When the maid left to continue her work in another family,
+it was too late. Not one of the four recovered. One shot himself
+the night after his marriage. The second remained an unhappy
+monomaniac and after a complete nervous break-down
+had to be taken to a sanitarium. The two youngest turned their
+<a id="page-206" class="pagenum" title="206"></a>
+backs on everything that suggested Eros. One, an ascetic, took
+refuge in a monastery. The other dragged his way through a
+drab and joyless world, shrinking from all human companionship.
+The woman is probably an esteemed children’s maid to
+this very day, under whose prudent care more charges are
+being ruined.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nobody said anything. The darkness had slowly filled the
+whole room, leaving the windows hardly more than pale gray
+oblongs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh,” said Sophie. Myra seemed to hear her voice trembling
+with angry tears, and seemed to feel her clench her fist. “She
+ought to be hanged!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then you’d have to hang a great many people,” said Eccarius
+quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again the heavy silence weighed on them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a knock, somebody opened the door. A ray of light
+stabbed the darkness, a voice tore the silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here is the newspaper,” said the maid, stopping in surprise
+at the door. “Shall I turn on the lights, madame?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, do, Martha.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The light was like a trumpet blast. They all bowed their
+heads to escape its glare, knitting their brows and blinking their
+eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+None of them had the courage to look at the others. Sophie
+took the paper from the maid and began to read aloud, the most
+indifferent things in the world, things that could interest nobody.
+But all of them feigned interest, and everybody had
+something to say, so that a lively conversation ensued, made
+up entirely of trifling remarks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eccarius left before the conversation had died down again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They continued to speak of various things after he was gone.
+But they seemed no longer able to sustain an affectedly frivolous
+conversation. Sophie had a saving idea. She proposed a
+<a id="page-207" class="pagenum" title="207"></a>
+game of scat so that they could sit together for a little longer
+and have something to occupy their minds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But suddenly, in the middle of the game, she let the hand
+holding her cards sink to the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He has one brother in the insane asylum,” she said as if she
+had been thinking of nothing else all the while.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know,” said Nora just as seriously. “And another in a monastery.”
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-14">
+<a id="page-208" class="pagenum" title="208"></a>
+XIV
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+When Myra reached home she was met in the hall by one of
+the maids who said—as it seemed to Myra, with an ambiguous
+and lewd smile—“Miss Werkenthin is waiting for Miss Rudloff.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra felt her heart palpitate, as it had so often of late. She
+walked more slowly, not wishing to reach the door of her room
+too soon. She felt that she must have a few moments’ reprieve.
+But she felt, too, as if the maid had stopped, and she thought
+that mocking, spying glance was stabbing her back, between
+the shoulder blades. So she walked quicker.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was cold outside, cold on the stairs, cold in the hall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had been so happy at the idea of her warm, quiet room,
+of the mild light of the lamp, of an hour in the easy-chair with
+a good book in her hand. Now her beloved room was quite
+filled with a strange presence, a cloud of opium and stupefying
+perfume would assail her, and she would not enjoy a quiet
+quarter of an hour that night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once more she would lie awake half the night with all her
+nerves jumping, taking one sleeping-tablet after another to
+induce a few hours of dull unrefreshing slumber.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was shaken by sudden anger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want my room to myself!” she thought, gritting her teeth
+like a defiant child, and clenching her fists. “Every animal has
+its hole into which to creep! I want a room where I can be
+alone. I must be alone, I must have rest. I don’t want any stranger
+in my room!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-209" class="pagenum" title="209"></a>
+Exhausted and close to tears, she supported herself for a moment
+against the wall. She was considering whether it would
+not be better to go out again, to take refuge in a coffee-house
+and read the papers. But she was tired and dreaded the cold
+dark street. Moreover, she would have to come home in the
+end, and up until midnight there would be someone constantly
+waiting for her in her room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So she walked with sudden decision to her door. She decided
+to feign a headache. Ah, she would probably have one soon
+from anxiety and anger. She would simply go to bed, make
+compresses, and swallow powders, replying to all questions with
+a curt yes or no. Then, perhaps, she would presently be left
+alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As she opened her door, she felt for a moment as if she were
+dreaming or insane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the doors and drawers of her desk were open. White
+heaps stood up like little mountains. Her hasty glance took in
+letters, pictures, books, notebooks—everything in wild disorder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before the open drawers Gisela was kneeling in a shirt and
+black silk underwear, rummaging among Myra’s linen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The worst that one could do to Myra was to touch her unprotected
+things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sprang at Gisela, seizing her bare arm angrily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What are you doing here? What’s in your mind?” she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gisela was not in the least frightened. “You come too soon,”
+she said coldly, baring her teeth with a mocking twitch of her
+lips. “Yes, you come too soon. I know very well what I’m talking
+about. I mean not too late, too soon. If you had come five
+minutes later, all would have been over.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What is the meaning of this?” Myra was becoming more
+and more enraged, rather than frightened, although the face
+that had been pushed close to hers for some hundred seconds,
+<a id="page-210" class="pagenum" title="210"></a>
+was strange and weird. “What are you doing here? Why are
+you going through my things?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m looking for something,” said Gisela, sharply and contemptuously.
+“You can see for yourself that I’m looking for
+something. Is it any of your business? I really don’t think it <em>is</em>
+any of your business. I really don’t believe that anything,” she
+touched Myra’s breast several times with one finger, “goes on
+in there, in your heart. Or in my heart for you. I’m in
+the ground, deep in the ground.” With a gentle broken voice
+and a face distorted by sorrow, she sang, “In the cool ground.”
+Suddenly in a completely altered tone that was clear and almost
+businesslike, she said, “I’m looking for your revolver.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra started to glance at the night-table, but with almost
+superhuman energy checked herself when she saw that Gisela’s
+eyes were glued to her face, watching every expression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you want with the revolver?” she asked very
+quietly. “It’s no plaything for you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do I want with the revolver?” said Gisela with a plaintive
+singing child’s voice. “To hold it against my temple, to pull
+the trigger, to die, to sleep. What a question! What do I want
+with the revolver? Ai, ai, what do people generally do with revolvers?
+Ai, ai....” She suddenly began to laugh. “Have you
+ever heard anybody say ‘Ai, ai,’ before in your life? It’s too stupid!
+Who can have invented the expression? Ai, ai! Ai, ai!”
+She began to laugh louder and louder. She laughed so much
+that the tears ran down her face. She shook her head so that
+wisps of hair fluttered about her forehead while she kept repeating,
+“Ai, ai! Ai, ai!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly she got up and her slender elegantly shod foot
+kicked her clothes which were lying on the floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You mustn’t be surprised that I got undressed,” she said, “I
+did it intentionally because I felt too warm. You’ll probably
+think it’s not right for me to undress in your room. If so, I forthwith
+beg your pardon, ask your forgiveness.” She said it very
+<a id="page-211" class="pagenum" title="211"></a>
+formally. “You’ll think a lot of things are not right because you
+come from a higher sphere of society. In other words, you’re
+just a spheroid!” Again she began to laugh hysterically. “I never
+did know what that was, but you’re exactly what I imagined
+a spheroid looked like!” She tottered and supported herself
+with both hands against the commode; her eyes were half shut,
+her mouth was distorted with pain. “If anybody in all this
+world loved me, she would put me to bed now. Oh, if I could
+only lie down so that my brain would get back into place again.
+It has turned over. But that’s the way it feels, exactly that way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra caught her elbow and supported her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come, I’ll put you to bed.” She made an effort to speak
+very gently. “Come, you poor child. You can lie down and be
+comfortable on the divan. Then your poor brain will get back
+into place again. You are tired and you must sleep. Then you’ll
+be fresh and cheerful again in a few hours.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She took the slender, limp body by the shoulders, and guiding
+Gisela to the divan, laid her among the cushions and covered
+her with a blanket from the bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sat beside Gisela, mechanically caressing her cold, and
+apparently lifeless hands until the girl’s irregular breathing
+grew more quiet. Her limbs relaxed and her head sank deep
+among the pillows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra sat for a while without moving, for she was afraid she
+would wake the sleeper. At any rate, it was quiet in her room
+now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked at the clock. In half an hour Gisela was supposed
+to be at the cabaret. Myra cast a glance at the exhausted face
+with its worn features and open mouth. It was hardly possible
+to awaken the sleeper now and remind her of her obligations.
+Nor had Myra the slightest desire to do so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She rose quietly to go to the telephone. She wanted at least
+to call up the cabaret and tell them that Gisela was sick. Perhaps
+she could save her a fine in that way. Moreover, the
+<a id="page-212" class="pagenum" title="212"></a>
+thought was unbearable to her middle-class sensibilities that
+people would be waiting there, becoming more and more excited
+from moment to moment, and not know what had happened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At first she walked on tiptoe, glancing back cautiously like
+a criminal, toward the night-table, planning to remove the
+revolver. She wondered where she could put it. No place
+seemed safe enough. She decided to carry it on her person, and
+as she did not want it seen, she thrust it into her waist. It felt
+heavy and cold and gruesome hanging in her light shirt, and
+although she had tried the safety catch, she thought that at
+every step the slightest jolt would loosen it, jar the trigger, and
+drive a bullet through her breast. Defiantly, she told herself
+that nothing better could happen, controlling her fear in that
+fashion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She waited a long time in the telephone booth before she gave
+her number because she thought she heard steps in the hall,
+or doors opening. She did not want anybody to overhear her
+conversation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she finally got her connection, she had to repeat three
+separate times the litany that Miss Werkenthin was ill and
+could not come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One moment, please, I’ll connect you with the office,” said
+the first, very courteous voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wait a minute, I’ll give you the manager,” said the second
+less affably.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So,” said the third sharp voice, “so Miss Werkenthin is sick.
+Well, the doctor will decide that! He’ll be at her room in a quarter
+of an hour.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Miss Werkenthin is not at her room,” said Myra with a
+throbbing heart. “She is at my room.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And who are you anyway?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A friend of Miss Werkenthin.” No, not even if they had
+<a id="page-213" class="pagenum" title="213"></a>
+broken her on the rack would Myra have told him her name.
+“Miss Werkenthin was visiting me and she fainted.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She heard the mocking intonation with which the voice repeated,
+“She went to a friend’s house and fainted!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another voice hoarse with rage, shouted into the mouthpiece,
+“She’s drunk, huh?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra heard somebody being dragged away and pacified, and
+more rude muttering. “Morphine, coke and alcohol, one after
+the other!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell your friend,” this was the first sharp voice, and the contemptuous
+“your friend” was like a blow to Myra, “that while
+I can understand her preferring the pleasure of your company
+to an appearance on my stage, I can also assure her that it is no
+pleasure at all for me to pay her a high wage for nothing or less
+than nothing. Miss Werkenthin must come with a doctor’s certificate
+tomorrow or she will be dismissed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The receiver was hung up with a bang.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a painful moment Myra considered phoning the doctor.
+Perhaps he could be moved to write a certificate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she would have to give her name and address. She would
+have to meet this strange man and take him into her room. She
+was boiling with indignation. How had she been precipitated
+into all this?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She returned to her room without making a sound. When
+she saw her things scattered on the floor, another wave of anger
+swept over her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She did not want to go out. But neither did she like to see
+everything ransacked and thrown about in this fashion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She turned a chair so that its back was to the desolation in
+the room and on the divan. She picked up a scientific work
+and endeavored to concentrate on it. On the divan, the regular
+breathing was so hoarse and harsh that it seemed not to come
+from that delicate body. The disorder behind her signified disturbance
+<a id="page-214" class="pagenum" title="214"></a>
+too. It was as if the open drawers and doors were uttering
+a cry for help. And she seemed to have eyes in the back
+of her head which could see through the easy-chair to the pieces
+of paper and batiste which stood out white against the dark
+carpet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The walking and talking ceased outside. It grew still in the
+room, still in the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The heat died down, the room became colder and colder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cold crept from the floor into Myra’s legs. She drew up
+her feet on the chair, but that did not help for long.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beside her on the floor lay Gisela’s coat. She picked it up
+and wrapped it around her knees. A cloud of dust rose from
+it. Disgusted, she threw it back on the carpet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was shivering with cold and agitation and weariness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Long after midnight she got up to fetch her own coat from
+the nearest chair. Her limbs were stiff and hurt at every move.
+As cautiously as she stepped the boards creaked, and Gisela
+started up with a cry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her eyelids were swollen thick, her hair hung in tangled
+strands around her pale, haggard face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who’s there?” she cried. “Oh, it’s you, Myra!” She laughed
+slightly embarrassed. “I thought it was someone breaking in!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I called up the Trocadero,” said Myra quietly and wearily.
+“I think Kayser himself answered the telephone. You missed
+the performance. He was very angry. You have to bring a doctor’s
+certificate in the morning, or he’ll let you go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let him,” said Gisela scornfully. “He’s ridiculous with his
+threats!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps you can tell him that
+yourself tomorrow. It was unpleasant enough to let myself be
+treated by such a man as if it were my fault.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Poor Myra.” It sounded sincerely remorseful and without a
+trace of sarcasm. “You don’t know how bad you make me feel.
+<a id="page-215" class="pagenum" title="215"></a>
+Must your poor little bourgeois soul with its thousand cares be
+worried about me!” She worked her way out from under the
+blanket. “I was pretty much in my right mind before, when I
+was looking for the revolver, believe me! I know exactly what
+I am worth, and what is best for my own sake and everybody
+else’s.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sat on the divan, gazing gloomily at her slender legs in
+their black silk stockings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My mother always prophesied that I’d end in the gutter.
+Even when I was a little girl. And I must end soon if it isn’t to
+be there. I’m sick, tomorrow I may be breadless. My voice is
+gone, ruined. Tomorrow I’ll be hunting a lover at the club, the
+day after at the café, the week after on the street.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She raised her face which was bathed in tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Give me your revolver, Myra, I beg you. You’ll be doing a
+good deed. I’ll write a farewell letter so that you won’t be under
+suspicion. I beg you, have mercy on me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I haven’t got it any more,” Myra lied. “I’ve hidden it.” At
+that moment she felt it hanging heavily in the loose bulge on
+her shirtwaist so that the collar was like a tight narrow band
+around her neck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What will happen now?” she thought. “I’ll never get rid
+of her. It will go on like this. I’ll find her in my room every
+time I come home. She won’t have a job any longer, and no
+money. She’ll stick to me like a burr. And that’s what my life
+will be like! Why should all this have happened? How have I
+deserved it? Only because I let myself be pleased by her affection.
+Has she any claim on me because of that, have I given
+myself into her hands body and soul?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shivering with cold, Gisela crossed her bare arms over her
+breast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s cold here,” she said. “Why didn’t you come to bed, poor
+little beastie? It must certainly be very late—much too late for
+<a id="page-216" class="pagenum" title="216"></a>
+me to catch a car home. Ah, I feel changed. Come, Myra girl,
+let us both come to bed so that we’ll be warm. Do you feel as
+deathly cold as I do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said Myra curtly. “Lie down. I want to read a little
+more. I’m still too wide awake.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll lie close to the wall,” Gisela said. “You’ll have room.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, yes, thanks!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra sat perfectly still again in her deep easy-chair. Again
+the weight of the revolver made a fine tight band across her
+neck. She reflected on her conduct and became dizzy as if she
+saw an abyss which she had crossed without having been aware
+of its terrible depth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Had not a voice within her cried only a moment before, “Do
+it! Give her the revolver! Let her make an end of it, and then
+you’ll have peace!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If she had done that, there would have been a shot, blood and
+brains would have spurted, a corpse would be lying in her
+room, or a dying woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She, Myra Rudloff, would have committed a murder!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Out of cowardliness, out of love of comfort, out of petty pitiful
+selfishness. She had already committed that murder in her
+mind. All that had been needed was an innocent lifting of her
+hand....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And then....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shuddered and cowered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the bed came a deep regular breathing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra’s mouth twisted into a scornful smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But she would not have done it,” she thought, “she’d never
+have done it.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+A highroad stretched away toward the light. In the dark
+shadowy corners that the sun never reached, little stained rotting
+patches of snow were still lying. The fruit trees at either
+side of the road were laden with little ball-like buds on which a
+<a id="page-217" class="pagenum" title="217"></a>
+white streak was already discernible. The woods in the distance
+were enveloped in a reddish veil that betokened new life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra and Sophie were wandering along the road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“God, it’s beautiful,” said Myra, opening her mouth to
+draw the pure invigorating air into her lungs. “It was a wonderful
+idea of Nora’s to chase us both out!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nora always has wonderful ideas,” said Sophie with a
+happy, affectionate pride. “She always knows what I need and
+what will do me good much better than I do myself. For the
+most part I never know what is the matter with me. Actually,
+I feel uncomfortable and I don’t know whether I should like to
+sleep, eat or go for a walk. Then Nora says to me, ‘You ought
+to lie down,’ or ‘you need to get out into the air’—and it’s always
+the right thing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good God, how beautiful the world is!” Myra exulted. “Oh,
+Sophus, I’m so insanely grateful to you for making me conscious
+again!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We will walk often in the open together,” said Sophie. “I’ll
+show you all the things that I looked at a hundred times long
+ago, very long ago, at a period when I was desperately lonely
+and devoured by the need of some human soul to whom I
+could show them. We must come here when the fruit trees are
+in bloom, and afterwards, when the whole woods is a garden of
+dog-roses and May-flowers, and in September when the leaves
+have turned.” She seized Myra’s hand, clasping the wrist with
+a grip so firm that it was almost painful. “You must not go
+away—that was all nonsense that I preached to you before.
+We’ll have to put your life to rights here. We must find something
+for you to do, and you must furnish a nice little home so
+that you don’t have to remain in that horrible pension. Then
+you’ll come after work and chat with us and once a week we’ll
+have to declare a holiday and run around the mountains from
+morning till night.” Suddenly she changed her tone and said
+with an amusing dryness, “And then when we’re tired out,
+<a id="page-218" class="pagenum" title="218"></a>
+we’ll stand on some declivity where we can smell the dinner
+that God destined for us, steaming out of the chimney pots below,
+and we won’t be able to get down....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ll get down!” said Myra confidently. “If for no other
+reason, because we can’t do anything else. Or shall we turn
+aside from our goal to seek an easier way? Never!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At first, while their feet sank in the rustling leaves, the going
+was easy. But during the last stage, just on a level with the
+roofs, above the road, there were more pines and spruces and
+the ground was strewn with needles which in the bright sunlight
+were smoother than a waxed floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sophie who was accustomed from childhood to the ups and
+downs of mountains, though she was somewhat out of practice
+of late, was nevertheless much surer-footed than Myra, who
+looked for a supporting branch from step to step. Sophie
+stretched out her hand to her, but Myra declined it ambitiously.
+Whereupon both of them began to laugh at themselves, at one
+another, at their little adventure, at the quips they shouted. All
+that was necessary was for one of them to warn the other that
+he might slip, to turn the laughter they were trying to suppress
+into a peal of childish merriment. Myra laughed until
+the tears came into her eyes. She was no longer watching where
+she stepped. Suddenly her feet slipped, a branch which she
+caught at snapped and remained in her hands. She would certainly
+have fallen had not Sophie, whose one foot was supported
+against a root, stooped and caught her and held her
+upright. They remained for a moment breast to breast, hot,
+laughing, panting for breath, while their pulses throbbed. At
+the same moment both became serious. Their faces bent one
+toward the other—humbly, ineluctably, lips were laid against
+lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra closed her eyes. She felt Sophie’s feverish mouth on
+her eyelids, her temples, her cheeks. She heard her hot voice
+in a whisper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-219" class="pagenum" title="219"></a>
+“Don’t move, don’t resist, or we will both go plunging
+down!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had no thought of resisting. She had no thought of moving.
+She stood motionless. Her heart seemed to expand, to
+grow warm. It seemed to her as if she must flower under these
+caresses like a young tree in May.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They ate lunch under a friendly enticing red roof, and crossing
+the silvery lake, wandered toward the station. At times
+they were boisterous, at times sentimental, but always courteously
+reserved on the personal theme. They spoke of a thousand
+things, but not of themselves, not of that which both were
+thinking and feeling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the small station, they sat with other people, silent and
+tired, waiting for the train. The darkness set in early. The little
+lanterns cast a melancholy light through the blue dusk. Myra
+began to feel cold, and pressed her face against her raised coat
+collar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last the train came. They both looked for an empty compartment
+without stating their intention. They found one and
+climbed in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now everything will be all right,” thought Myra. “I will lay
+my head on her shoulder and she will say gentle, nice things to
+me. Then this cold feeling will go away.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sophie sat beside her, leaning slightly forward, and stared
+out the window without saying a word—for a long, a long,
+long time. Outside, fields and forest glided by, shrouded deeper
+and deeper in the twilight, broken at rare intervals by a lighted
+window, a solitary lantern. At last Sophie turned her face to
+Myra, a face which in the feeble glow of the flickering little gas-lamp
+looked grave, deathly pale and tense in every feature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I told you something this morning, Myra,” she began awkwardly,
+stammering, and yet it sounded as if she had spent the
+last hour learning it by heart. “Just recollect it as if it were the
+only thing I had said or done. I told you to go away from here!
+<a id="page-220" class="pagenum" title="220"></a>
+And now I beg you if you bear me the least—good will—‘Go
+away from here!’ I’ve known for almost thirty years that I cannot
+live without Nora. I’ve proved it to myself. I went to the
+bad in every sense when I lost contact with her, and I became
+a human being and a worker at the moment she came to me. I
+have lived for five years in the conviction that I am unequivocally
+happy. I dare not let anything shake that conviction. I
+dare not ever think that there is another possibility in life for
+me than Nora. She would feel it and she would go. She endures
+her sufferings solely because she is an absolute necessity to me.
+She would end it all if she knew that I was happy for as much
+as an hour without her. Perhaps you like us so well that it will
+be a real sacrifice to give up your friendly relations with us. I
+would almost say, I hope so.” She bowed her head very low so
+that Myra should not see the quivering of her lips. “But I know
+that you will make this sacrifice because you have an intimation
+of what is involved. I have overestimated my powers. It
+is very bad to have to confess that to you. When you are gone,
+I will confess it to Nora. But not now, as long as it might deprive
+her of her peace for a moment. And I would not find the
+right voice in which to tell it now!” She stared out the window
+again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra’s throat was parched.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course,” she said without thinking, “naturally.” And
+again, “Yes, of course, naturally!” without knowing what she
+meant by it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the train stopped, Sophie jumped out and caught
+Myra’s elbow in order to assist her. But she relinquished it again
+at once, and both smiled with hurt and embarrassment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They took leave of one another on the platform with a firm
+squeeze of the hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Get home safely, child,” said Sophie, “and get safely
+through life. And I thank you—for everything.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And I you,” answered Myra in a lifeless voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-221" class="pagenum" title="221"></a>
+Then she dropped the good firm hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a moment their eyes met, stole one into the other’s, then
+they shifted again, as if frightened, to some bright point in the
+distance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sophie turned. She plunged both hands in her pockets, bent
+her head and strode away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a while she continued to tower above the crowds of hurrying
+people, then her tall figure was submerged and disappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Slowly, with heavy footsteps, Myra turned toward the opposite
+stairway.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-15">
+<a id="page-222" class="pagenum" title="222"></a>
+XV
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+They sat first in the basket-chairs in front of a café with little
+lamps that had roses on the silk shades and pearl fringes. There
+were Gisela, Kramer, Mara Luigi, Will Kraft, John. They ate
+fruit-ices and waffles and drank a sweet liqueur, in order, as
+Giesbert said, “to prevent a glaciation of their stomach walls.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Mara Luigi who had been dancing, and Kraft and John,
+who had been to the concert, had not eaten that evening and
+expressed their cravings for a real beefsteak. So they travelled
+two doors farther down to a wine restaurant where the orchestra
+was playing the same pieces in a somewhat different order.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After their meal they went to the nearest bar and drank a
+Sweden punch and a bottle of champagne, and Mara Luigi
+danced with Giesbert and Kraft, which caused all the other
+dancers to stop and stare with interest. Myra felt her vanity
+somewhat flattered because she was with such excellent dancers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the official closing time came. The waiters brought the
+bill, turned down the lights and drew the heavy purple curtains
+across the windows. But nobody thought of getting up and
+going.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At a neighboring table were sitting a beautiful blonde woman
+and two gentlemen. Myra kept staring at her all evening. The
+blonde woman regarded everything with a smiling or surprised
+curiosity, as if she were at a zoological garden, while the two
+robust gentlemen sat beside her as if it were their task to shield
+her from every impertinent glance and every poisonous breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Probably one of them is her husband the other her brother,”
+thought Myra. “There is a place unoccupied at their table, why
+<a id="page-223" class="pagenum" title="223"></a>
+don’t I sit there? Don’t I belong among that kind of people?
+By family, education, training and manners? The smooth-shaven
+man is certainly her brother—he’s the dead image of
+her. Wouldn’t it be much more suitable if I were married to
+him, and were making a little evening out with my brother and
+sister-in-law. That would be very nice. But why do I want that?
+Merely because I have a nostalgia for perfectly plain simple
+bourgeois surroundings, or because that lovely woman pleases
+me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the three people had left the neighboring table, Myra
+began to find it quite boresome and sterile. She was tired and
+had had her fill, but it seemed to her as if something further
+must happen in order to give this senseless expenditure of time
+and money some semblance of justification. She was afraid
+that it would happen again, as always, when she left a party
+early because she could not endure the boredom of it any longer.
+Everybody would say to her next day, “Oh, what a pity that
+you went so early, it was especially nice later on, we met so and
+so, and we had such a good time!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gisela was all for going to the Club. The others, except
+Kraft, who never touched a card, not from moral scruples, but
+because they bored him to death, agreed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was a little frightened. She knew that it would turn
+out as usual. Gisela would play and lose. Then Myra would try
+to save something and place her own bet—with some caution
+and discretion, and would win twice and lose three times. Or
+the other way round.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In any case, those hours at the Club always cost a few hundred
+or a few thousand marks, and for a week Myra would
+calculate the lost sums in terms of the books she saw in show-windows
+or handsome wood and leather goods. Or she would
+look at the beggars on the street whom she could have made
+happy, and the pale-faced children, with burning eyes, standing
+in front of toy shops or confectioners’ windows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-224" class="pagenum" title="224"></a>
+To be sure—she herself was not much put out. She could
+telegraph the bank and in a few hours would have as much
+money as she wanted. She was not extremely clever at banking
+manipulations but she did know one thing, she spent more
+than her interest. Sometimes it gave her an uneasy feeling, almost
+a slight dizziness. But she scolded herself for a narrow-minded
+Philistine. She would never have children—and she
+would not live long. It might even be good not to possess another
+cent and have, so to speak, to balance on a tight-rope.
+Such a situation would prove whether the forces of life were
+strong enough in her. Perhaps she would be happier in some
+very modest walk of life where she had to work—as a waitress
+or a shop-girl. Perhaps physical need would be at once an impetus
+and an absolution for putting her beloved revolver to her
+forehead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it was not merely indifference to life or death that caused
+Myra to go to the Club with the others. Gisela played with more
+bad luck than passion, and if she was so insistent about going
+to the Club or some bar or dance-hall, it was because she hoped
+to meet Fiametta there. Myra knew this. They had met often
+during the winter, and Myra was fascinated each time by her
+eloquent and haughty beauty, and was each time vexed because
+Fiametta was always dressed in better taste, was more assured
+in her manner, and above all, travelled in much better company
+than Myra.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As no one was at hand to attract Myra’s attention, she looked
+at herself in a mirror. She seemed quite a stranger to herself,
+and yet acceptable. She winked at herself in the glass as if to
+say, “Never fear, tonight we’ll manage to put on as haughty a
+face as that conceited person!”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+By the time they left the Club they were all in a more or less
+bad humor. They had all lost except John, who, with his hands
+<a id="page-225" class="pagenum" title="225"></a>
+full of bills, was running after Kraft and with tears in his eyes
+and a pleading voice, trying to force the money on him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Will Kraft refused it with a scarcely veiled irritation, his
+hands plunged in the pockets of his jacket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Both of them made Myra feel sorry. And Kramer made her
+feel sorry too, for he had lost heavily, and was now quite pale
+and monosyllabic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Giesbert and Mara Luigi made her feel sorry: they were
+bandying reproaches for not having bet at least on different
+sides of the table. Under their harsh muttered words was
+something like a hate that has been smouldering for years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Gisela made her feel sorry, because she looked wretched
+and decayed, like a chronic invalid—and because she had not
+met Fiametta.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And she felt sorry for herself—Oh, she felt so sorry for herself!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were all in a bad humor, but nobody wanted to go
+home and get over it by himself. All of them were expecting
+some compensation for this squandered night, some mad intoxication,
+some vast jollification—sensation, experience, joy,
+or an hour’s oblivion of all vexations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where do we go from here?” asked Giesbert, swinging his
+cane with somewhat affected high spirits. “Heads up, ladies
+and gentlemen, heads up! As everybody knows, the tom-cat
+doesn’t really go into action till morning! Forward to our sweet
+Emil’s! I wager that the overwhelming majority of our distinguished
+little company will feel quite at home there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They turned down a quiet dark side-street where stood a
+quiet dark little third rate middle class beer-shop. An elderly
+woman, bare headed, with a shawl around her shoulders,
+seemed to be waiting for a dog that was sniffing around, and
+which she called and motioned to from time to time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Giesbert appeared to know her. He greeted her with a
+friendly slap on the back, and asked her to open the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-226" class="pagenum" title="226"></a>
+The old lady undertook to guide them, and amidst constant
+cries of “Watch out!” they went up and down stairs, across an
+unlighted yard, through narrow doors, and tiny pitch-black
+passages between thick baize curtains, until suddenly there
+was a confusion of lights, sounds, colors and voices.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The large long room, bathed in lilac light, was decorated
+with impeccable taste. Black and lavender were the dominating
+colors. The thick carpet was black strewn with lavender flowers.
+The polished panelling, the marble mantelpiece, the velvet
+hanging covered with wildly fantastic lavender designs were
+also black. On the cornice of the panelling were black bronze
+and black wood-carvings, standing out against the lilac wallpaper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How pretty!” said Myra her eyes wide with surprise. “How
+does it come to be here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, his friends have furnished it for him,” said Giesbert
+with a rather ironic smile. “As a kind of private establishment!
+Why shouldn’t it be pretty? There are very wealthy people
+among them—and some very well-known artists—painters,
+sculptors, interior decorators—or what have you! In return,
+little Emil provides them champagne and company!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Emil!” called John to a slender, sinuous, dark-haired man.
+“Show our ladies your establishment!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Emil was all graciousness. He opened a narrow door, and
+they entered a dimly lighted, somber room, in which were
+standing a dozen brown tables. The light willow chairs had
+been piled on them, and the whole room was embellished with
+advertisements of beer and tobacco companies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At one table in a corner a pair of young fellows were lounging
+with cards in their hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next door was the real beer-shop whose window gave on the
+street. More chairs and tables, the tank with its brightly polished
+taps and a player-piano against the wall. The place was in almost
+total darkness, only a little night-lamp above the buffet
+<a id="page-227" class="pagenum" title="227"></a>
+was reflected in the metal trimmings. In one corner they saw
+two shadowy figures that seemed to be wrestling, and heard
+suppressed gigglings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They returned to the first room, and Emil, as he was called
+on all sides, assisted them to find a cozy table and the necessary
+number of chairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra regarded the people around her with a mixture of
+curiosity, sympathy and aversion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not far off, there was sitting a fat black-bearded man on
+whose broad and hairy hand a rosy solitaire flashed and sparkled.
+And that fat-fingered hand adorned with rings was toying
+with the head and shoulder of a pale young lad, clad in
+what was obviously an outworn Sunday best. He seemed half
+brazen and half embarrassed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At another table was seated a distinguished looking old gentleman,
+whose finely chiselled features and gray Van Dyke,
+betrayed the thinker. One of his slender white hands lay at the
+base of a champagne glass, the other accompanied his long
+discourses as if he were on a platform or in the pulpit. His
+handsome blue eyes glowed as though afire with youthful
+enthusiasm. Opposite him, sat a broad-shouldered, bull-neck
+soldier, with a good-looking honest peasant’s face, grinning,
+flattered but uncomprehending.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+More even than the men, the women attracted Myra’s attention.
+They ran the whole gamut of types. Some had on dark
+jackets, with lapels, breast-pockets and stiff collars. On their
+mannishly cut hair they wore small men’s hats. Others betrayed
+themselves only by a slight overpainting. The sharp
+features of a few expressed intelligence and character. There
+were others who verged on the cocotte.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One in particular Myra thought very beautiful. She was tall
+and slender, had short golden brown curls and the build and
+features of a Greek boy. She was sitting with a big party having
+a very good time, and laughed a lot and seemed slightly drunk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-228" class="pagenum" title="228"></a>
+A sweet provocative muffled music issued from behind the
+curtain. Two young soldiers in uniform had clasped one another
+around the hips and were swaying, body to body, in
+waltz rhythm. Despite their heavy boots, they stepped as delicately
+and discreetly as women dancers—not a step was audible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, Emil,” said Giesbert, “how real life is here! When I
+think I’ll get a bottle of champagne, I get it, but when I think,
+I’ll get nine bottles, I don’t get them!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no, Mr. Giesbert,” said Emil, smiling, “you can have
+nine bottles too!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They drank champagne, and champagne with red wine, and
+champagne with Port, and Benedictines, and Sweden punches
+and flips and champagne.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra drank somewhat prudently, and it amused her to
+watch how one after the other, they began to talk nonsense.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But although she was still mistress of her tongue and her
+thoughts, she felt her blood pulsing somewhat faster and the
+music lap her nerves in a warm stream. For a moment, as she
+closed her eyes, she felt a desire, and actually visualized herself
+sitting by the Rhine, on a terrace, or in a garden, listening to
+old sentimental folk songs from the water, and drinking a fragrant
+“Maybowl” with trusted friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she opened her eyes and saw the room with its morbid
+color-scheme, filled with smoke and fumes, she was overwhelmed
+with aversion and misery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They had become quite merry at her table. All had soft,
+parted, burning lips and glowing eyes. All laughed and nestled
+into their chairs as into a caress, or groped for one another with
+their hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Intoxication, intoxication,” Myra thought, “I must force
+myself to feel what the others feel! I had such a nice warm sense
+of well-being before, a soft gliding dizziness. Why has it gone
+and left everything so stale and horrid?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-229" class="pagenum" title="229"></a>
+She tossed off two glasses of champagne quickly, one after
+the other. But she simply felt a dull heavy pressure over her
+eyes. She held her hand over the glass that Kraft wanted to give
+her “to make her happy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, thanks, please, I have a head-ache, and I won’t become
+happy anyway.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Take a little coke and get rid of your head-ache,” suggested
+Gisela.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perhaps.” Myra was ready for anything.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From all sides little gold and silver boxes were offered her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She took a pinch of the white powder on the back of her
+hand, and snuffed it up her nose. She had an impression of
+powdered snow when she saw the white crystals. The room was
+close and stuffy and the idea made her feel better. It was as if
+she were breathing pure clear winter air. The top of her skull
+opened and the depressing fog that had weighed down her
+brain all evening disappeared. The veils seemed to be torn from
+her weary eyes. Everything seemed nearer and clearer, firmer
+in its outlines, brighter in color.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank God,” she said with relief, “I’m beginning to understand.
+It really is a glorious feeling.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the effect wore off quickly. She tried it again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her head was clear, her thought firm. She felt well and secure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Giesbert was paying her rather thick-tongued compliments.
+“Shplendid, little Rudloff, shplendid! The little girl can carry
+off a thing or two! My highest reshpects! She’ll drink ush under
+the table, Will, and ‘shnow’ us under the floor, into the
+cellar, under the cellar. We jusht won’t be there at all, she
+makesh ush look shmall, sho shmall!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mara Luigi had changed places with Kramer in order to sit
+beside Myra. She laid both her arms on the arm of Myra’s chair
+and spoke to her in a low voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell me honestly, why is it you don’t like me? I’ve always
+<a id="page-230" class="pagenum" title="230"></a>
+liked you so immensely. From the very first moment—I’m
+right in saying that, am I not, Gisela? But at the same time,
+I’ve always had the feeling that you couldn’t abide me. I’m too
+feminine for you, eh? But, believe me, the externals have very
+little to do with it! Or do you prefer bobbed hair? Shall I have
+my hair bobbed?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Myra is the only woman in the world I’d ever marry,” declared
+little John like a sleepy child. “I’d marry Myra right off,
+if I were a man!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“God, what a fore-leg the lady has!” Kraft put his hand
+around her wrist admiringly. “Show us your feet too!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Laughing, Myra pressed her crossed feet against the edge of
+his chair. He stroked her ankles in their sheer silk stockings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, you may stroke them,” John conceded magnanimously,
+“you may stroke them because it’s Myra, that’s why.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A great and almost thrilling joy surged over Myra. She felt
+herself beautiful, desirable and desired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She has the most beautiful legs in the world,” said Gisela,
+pulling back Myra’s skirt to her knees. Myra let her do it without
+protest. For the first time, in a burst of pride, she realized
+herself what perfect slender legs she had.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl at the other table, who looked like a Greek boy, had
+been constantly trying to attract Myra’s attention. Every time
+that Myra glanced up, the Greek boy would carry her glass to
+her mouth. At first she had done it as if by accident, now she
+smiled as she raised her glass. Myra smiled back and drank to
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently the girl wanted to get up. The people at her table
+laughed and tried to restrain her. But she would not be deterred.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Glass in hand, she came over to Myra. The effort to walk
+without staggering, lent her movements an especial grace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want to drink to you,” she said with a challenging little
+laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra raised her glass. They drank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-231" class="pagenum" title="231"></a>
+The stranger hesitated. “And—I’d like to give you a kiss, too—that
+is, if Gisela <a id="corr-9"></a>will allow me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Everybody at the table laughed aloud and shouted remarks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, I allow you,” said Gisela ironically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There is nothing for her to allow,” Myra contradicted
+haughtily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The stranger bent quickly, and Myra felt against her lips a
+hot open wine-wet mouth—for the space of a second. She closed
+her eyes, and since her head was pressed back into her shoulders,
+and Kraft still held her feet on his chair, she became so
+dizzy that she gripped her chair with both hands. She felt as
+if the chair were tipping, the whole room swaying, as if she
+were on a swing that was plunging through the air, or on a
+ship whose planks were sprung and were being sucked into a
+raging whirl-pool.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sat up and pushed away the stranger almost violently in
+her need for air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same moment, she saw Gisela jump up, deathly pale,
+with her mouth distorted, her head stretched forward like a
+panther ready to spring. Her burning eyes were staring at the
+entrance door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Involuntarily Myra followed her glance and saw the dark
+curtain fall into place behind the latest arrivals.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beside Ulrich Zeeden’s somewhat stooped figure stood Fiametta,
+on the arm of a tall, slender elegant man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her eyes were large and clear and unsurprised, but full of a
+probing curiosity and of a warm velvety sheen. To Myra it
+seemed as if those eyes were not an arm’s length away from
+her, so distinctly could she observe the play of the lids, the
+flecks of light on the brown iris, the shadow of the lashes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Those eyes were raised with a soft gleam to the man at her
+side as if they had had more than enough of the scene before
+them. Her lips moved. The man nodded in agreement. All
+three turned, and the curtain fell into place behind them again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-232" class="pagenum" title="232"></a>
+Gisela seized a glass from the table and flung it with a bitter
+laugh at the door. Giesbert and Kraft instantly caught her
+wrists. She resisted, trying to free herself, but finally dropped
+her head on her breast, and began to cry, loudly, unrestrainedly,
+hysterically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other people, occupied as they were with themselves,
+nevertheless watched her attentively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra began to tremble in every limb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go!” she muttered. “I must go, must go, must go!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She felt as if she would join in that strident weeping the next
+moment, or throw herself on the floor, or overturn the table
+and trample the glasses and bottles under her feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was glad when she found herself in the street at last, in a
+cold blue dawn, and still gladder to be in the taxi that they all
+took.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The air brought her to her senses. She felt beastly wretched.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She made the others swear not to cause any unnecessary commotion
+on the stairs or in the halls. But the more she pleaded,
+the more exuberant they became. Kramer had lost control completely.
+He was all for knocking on Mrs. Meidinger’s door and
+ordering her to send him up a pretty girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s no more than her duty,” he babbled. “She’s the mother
+of this establishment. What’s to prevent her putting it on my
+bill, she puts everything else on it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Myra opened her door, Giesbert tried to crowd in after
+her. She pushed him out, but he embraced her and a tussle
+ensued in the open door in the course of which Giesbert
+hugged Myra and covered her face and neck with passionate
+kisses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly the door of the next room was opened with a bang,
+and Luisa Peters emerged in an amazing big-checked dressing-gown,
+with her hair done up for the night in two long
+smoothly plaited braids. She forcefully commanded quiet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Little Marga Luigi found her unexpected appearance so comical
+<a id="page-233" class="pagenum" title="233"></a>
+that she bent double, shaking with laughter and pointing
+her finger at her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra took advantage of Giesbert’s astonished about-face to
+slip into her room where she shut and bolted the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She staggered against the bureau with which she supported
+herself, trembling in every limb. Burning shame was devouring
+her, gnawing at her inwardly, hollowing her out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She bent double but she could not escape the incessant gnawing
+pain. She wished she could get away, but she knew she
+did not have the courage or the strength to pack a suitcase. But
+she must get away, at least out of that house, before morning.
+It was unthinkable that she should ever cross the dining-room
+again. Unthinkable, too, to wait for Mrs. Meidinger to give her
+notice that she could not tolerate such a person in her house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She abhorred, she loathed herself. In addition she felt physically
+wretched—dizziness, weariness, a galloping heart, the
+gall-like bitterness with which the cocaine burned her jaws.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She felt that she must come to some decision, but she did not
+know what.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her thoughts sought feverishly for something to which they
+could cling, sought some person to whom they could confess,
+and who would have the power to absolve them. She was seeking
+someone who would protect her from herself, to whom she
+could kneel, in whose lap she could hide her face, and who
+would lay kind, strong hands on her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother!” a voice cried within her. “Mother!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her thoughts turned to Sophie—but Sophie repelled them.
+In that serene little house, which had always been so comforting
+a refuge to her, she would be a disturber of the peace. Not
+through any fault of hers, she thought bitterly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Olga—Olga alone was salvation. She would press the revolver
+to her forehead, would think that it was Olga’s cool,
+firm hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Olga’s hands would efface, erase, all the painful things,
+<a id="page-234" class="pagenum" title="234"></a>
+the shame, the remorse, the disgust and grief and hopeless
+despair. In another moment all that could be effaced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And if she was dead the next morning, everything would be
+explained. Of course, little Mara Luigi would not understand
+it: she would always declare that Myra had been “so cheerful
+last night.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Fiametta would understand. She would recall the previous
+night. For she had seen Myra, oh, Myra still felt the impact
+of her glance, and Fiametta would hunch up her shoulders
+with a sudden shudder at the thought that she had glanced at
+a dying woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Luisa Peters would say, “Poor child, she drank to find the
+courage.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sophie would be very shocked—perhaps she would be
+grieved too. But what concern was that of Myra’s! Sophie had
+not given a thought as to what became of Myra. And she had
+Nora....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It must happen quickly before anybody woke up in the
+house. In twenty seconds it would be over—all over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that moment when she took the revolver out of the box,
+there was a knock at the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra stood motionless, holding her breath. Perhaps she
+ought to do it now, at once, quickly, spurred by that impatient
+knocking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then it would be over, then whoever was outside there could
+enter, for all she cared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Would it make a loud noise? Probably she wouldn’t hear it
+herself—she hoped not, though of all the senses the ear must
+function the longest. Ah, perhaps it wouldn’t happen so
+quickly, and she would hear them breaking down the door
+and the shrieks and cries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Please, open the door!” called the voice outside; it was
+as pleading as it was commanding. “Please, Miss Rudloff,
+open the door a moment!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-235" class="pagenum" title="235"></a>
+It was not Giesbert, or Mara Luigi, or one of the maids. It
+was Luisa Peters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps she was sick and needed someone. She would hardly
+be rattling Myra’s door in the middle of the night to read her
+a moral lecture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra tossed the revolver carelessly into the box and opened
+the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Luisa Peters forced her way into the room. She stood broad
+and robust, and a little ridiculous in her big-checked dressing-gown,
+in spite of her pale face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her quick alert eye instantly noticed the open box and the
+revolver with the butt sticking out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she did not betray this by the slightest gesture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I must beg your pardon, Miss Rudloff,” she said with a
+good-natured smile. “I complained because I thought that you
+came home in a rather happy condition. But I saw at once that
+you weren’t well. You must lie down immediately—you can
+hardly stand on your feet. Can I help you? You had better believe,
+I know something about taking care of sick people!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While she was speaking, she took Myra’s hat from her tangled
+hair. She unbuttoned her dress. She held Myra like a doll,
+turning her this way and that with her strong arms. She removed
+the hurting hair-pins from the loosened knots.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly Myra felt the warm presence of a human being,
+felt those good, strong, solicitous hands. It was as if all her festering
+wounds broke open and warm blood washed away her
+pain. She began to weep, unappeasable gentle tears, releasing
+her, rinsing her of pain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am still too much a child,” she said, while the tears
+streamed down her face. “You will think I am drunk—but I
+am perfectly serious. I am still too much a child to run around
+the world so horribly alone!”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+For three days Luisa Peters held Myra in gentle captivity.
+She did not leave her alone for a moment, had her meals served
+<a id="page-236" class="pagenum" title="236"></a>
+in her room and turned away everyone with the announcement
+that Myra was sick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was perfectly satisfied with this arrangement. She herself
+would not have found the strength for this lie, and yet she
+felt the absolute necessity of separating forever from all the
+people among whom she had lived during the past year.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The very first day Luisa Peters endeavored to convince Myra—which
+did not prove difficult—that her associations were altogether
+unsuitable and that the best thing she could do would
+be to turn her back on that city and all her so-called friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the third, in the morning, she told Myra a great deal
+about her native city, of its far-famed cleanliness for which she
+was constantly longing, of its people who were reputed stiff
+and formal because they did not wear their hearts on their
+sleeves—although they were honest and courageous and pure.
+She told her, too, about her beautiful little step-sister, Gwen,
+who was about Myra’s age, though still a child, the carefully
+sheltered pet of the whole house. She would be a more suitable
+companion for Myra than these horrible females here.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the afternoon she helped Myra pack her suitcase. Myra
+wanted to go away, to go to the clean city where the swift
+white little boats crossed the blue waters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was quite touched by so much kindness and more so,
+if anything, by Luisa’s confidence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She smiled, a sad and knowing smile, when at parting Luisa
+Peters took her in her arms and kissed her on both cheeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At heart I’m at least ten years older than she,” she thought
+sorrowfully, “for I know what, God be praised, she does not
+even suspect—that she’s in love with me! Because she has little
+of the talent of ‘the horrible females,’ she’ll never confess it to
+herself. Probably she’d have to shoot herself, if she admitted
+it. God grant, that she never becomes conscious.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The only person whose hand Myra wished to shake once
+more was Eccarius. There was much sympathy in his face. Perhaps
+<a id="page-237" class="pagenum" title="237"></a>
+Luisa Peters had informed him of more than Myra gave
+her credit for knowing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There is something that you still have to tell me,” said Myra
+with an attempt at smiling, “I’ve often thought of it on sleepless
+nights and have wanted to ask you—and then I’ve always
+forgotten. Do you remember when we were walking out to Mrs.
+Hersfeld’s one day”—a sudden shyness prevented her from
+mentioning Sophie’s name—“I said that my motto would be
+‘Love life and be not afraid of death!’ But you wanted to turn
+the motto around....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” Eccarius nodded gravely. “‘Love death and be not
+afraid of life!’ Or in other words, and this is my life’s motto,
+a good motto for a long journey, ‘No one ought to die until he
+has learned to love death!’”
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-16">
+<a id="page-238" class="pagenum" title="238"></a>
+XVI
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Somewhere</p>
+      <p class="verse">The long white roads lead well away:</p>
+      <p class="verse">Somewhere</p>
+      <p class="verse">Will lead me home on earth, some day.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Myra was sitting on the terrace with the older women, with
+Mrs. Peters, with Mrs. Borgessen, with Mrs. Wietinghoff, and
+with the young Mrs. Vandahl who because of her condition
+felt a little awkward and preferred to sit still in her basket-chair
+rather than amuse herself with the “young people” in the
+garden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nearly all the women had some knitting in hand at which
+they worked more or less attentively. The conversation flowed
+along quietly, without haste, but also without stopping.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra looked down at the white net through which, also
+without haste but without stopping, she plied her needle in
+and out, silently rejoicing that she did not need to take part in
+the conversation. All she had to do was keep her eyes on her
+work. She need only look up and speak when she was spoken
+to. As a result, she seemed demure and young-girlish, and nobody
+ever suspected what a gloriously comfortable feeling that
+was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had sat on that terrace frequently in the last few months,
+but that day for the first time she felt the beauty of the garden,
+the quiet voices beside her, the clear calls from the tennis
+court, everything—colors, fragrances, sounds—with a sense
+of ease and comfort and grateful enjoyment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For weeks and weeks she had lived in a state of secret apprehension
+<a id="page-239" class="pagenum" title="239"></a>
+like a criminal in flight. A hundred times, she
+thought she saw Gisela or heard her voice. A hundred times,
+when she tore open a letter from Luisa Peters, she expected to
+read that Gisela had come to some horrible end. A hundred
+times her heart had throbbed so violently that she had had to
+struggle for breath. And a hundred times her fear and anxiety
+had been unnecessary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She often repeated to herself that there was really no need
+to fear a scandal, since the opinion and favor of these people
+was of no account to her anyway. And yet there were moments
+when she had to confess to herself that it would be less terrible
+to learn of Gisela’s death than to see her suddenly appear from
+somewhere—here on the terrace of the Peters’ house, for example.
+Some vexatious scene was sure to result, an unsavory
+scene of which she would willy-nilly be the central figure. She
+could picture it to herself down to the smallest detail, so that
+she would turn pale and blush, and the blood would hammer
+in her veins.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+More than once she resolved to affect an astonished and injured
+expression, a bewildered smile. When she had found
+her poise sufficiently to deny the acquaintanceship, they would,
+they must take Gisela for a mad woman and have her put out
+by the servants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra went over and over it during her sleepless nights. She
+saw Gisela’s face as distorted with hate and pain and vengeance
+as at that moment when she had flung her glass after Fiametta.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And she would hear herself saying in a very clear and calm
+voice, “I am so frightfully sorry, Mrs. Peters, to be the occasion
+of such a scene in your house. But I assure you I have never
+seen this—lady before in my life.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It would make a very good impression if she paused for a
+moment before the word “lady,” much better than if she were
+to say “person.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps it would be cleverer yet to go right up to Gisela and
+<a id="page-240" class="pagenum" title="240"></a>
+speak to her in a big sister tone. “Won’t you tell me where I
+have met you before? Where did you learn my name? I know
+you, of course, but for the moment I can’t recollect—won’t you
+help me? Did we perhaps go to school together?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Or might she not produce the best impression by playing the
+terrified maiden, by fleeing behind a chair and trembling,
+or by seeking protection from the ladies. “Help me! What
+does she want with me? Do you understand what she wants
+with me? Do you know her? Do you know who she is?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yes, perhaps that would be the most natural course for a
+well-bred and somewhat timid young lady when attacked by a
+lunatic....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She would lie, lie to the limit—although she really did not
+care very much for the opinion of Mrs. Peters, or the opinion
+of Mrs. Borgessen. But she wanted peace, she wanted to be
+completely enveloped in an invulnerable cloak of propriety
+and convention. She wanted never again to be exposed, never
+again to let the shirt be torn from her shoulders. Never again
+should a contemptuous glance strike her. Her skin had become
+sensitive, so incredibly sensitive—a glance in which she did not
+read kindliness and friendliness hurt her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Oh, how well she understood Olga Radó, who had denied
+her, pitilessly denied and handed her over. She had been
+hunted till she was worn out. Her skin had been seared with
+contemptuous glances. She could not endure another glance
+and did not mean to. She was afraid of glances, her fear of them
+amounted to the paltriest cowardice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she had not been afraid of a loaded revolver....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now Myra had reached the same pass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was prepared to die rather than endure contempt. And
+prepared to lie, with a straight face, with a clear voice, to lie
+cold-bloodedly, not for any personal advantage, not ever for
+the sake of respect, but from shame, from the profoundest, most
+<a id="page-241" class="pagenum" title="241"></a>
+abysmal shame, in order that the protecting mantle might
+not be stripped from her naked soul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of course, she had never loved Gisela. But sometimes it
+seemed to her as if she were capable of denying even her
+greatest and most sacred love.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That was when she trembled with fear of the Moebius girls.
+Might it not be that she would suddenly see Fannie’s and Emmie’s
+reddish blonde heads bob up? Might she not suddenly
+confront one of them, totally unprepared?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yes, and in this case it would do no good to declare them
+insane. No one would ever question the sound intelligence of
+the Moebius girls. Certainly no one here.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But what could they convict her of after all! Myra could meet
+every attack with a counter-attack. Myra had met Olga Radó
+at the Moebius house. “Our cousin,” they had proudly called
+her then. All she need do was inquire of them about their
+“relative,” and ask with surprise if it were true that Olga Radó
+was dead. Had she really shot herself?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Only, she must not weep as she asked it....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And whenever Myra thought that she must not weep, the
+tears would begin streaming down her face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But presently she would grow calmer. She was no longer
+thinking of the possibility of such encounters. The last year
+seemed to her somewhat unreal, vague and meaningless. The
+memory of Olga Radó persisted. But she now remembered
+most vividly the first period of their friendship, and the pure
+adoration she had felt for Olga’s intellectual superiority, her
+accomplished manner, the distinguished and captivating quality
+of her entrances and exits. Myra was inclined to think less
+frequently of her burning tenderness, of the agony of a farewell
+which could not even be called a farewell—less frequently of
+her death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes she would find a touching and painful pleasure
+<a id="page-242" class="pagenum" title="242"></a>
+in imaging that Olga was still living and would suddenly appear
+in these circles. Among these elegant, assured and clever
+women, she would be the most elegant, the most assured, the
+cleverest. If she but wished, she would succeed in ravishing
+this cool, reserved and self-conscious company in half an hour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the more clearly she had visualized the picture of the
+living Olga, the more her remembrance had paled in the last
+few months. Now and again it seemed to her like the giddy
+whirl of carnival night, and she was convinced that no one had
+a right to discuss a confidence of that time, any more than
+one had a right to remind a lady in the sober light of day that
+one had kissed her under her mask at the carnival carouse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra had taken off her mask and costume. She was once
+more Myra Rudloff, and it would have been tactless to allude
+to any fugitive half forgotten connections.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So completely was she Myra Rudloff that she sometimes
+wondered if there were not someone of her own name to whom
+she could attach herself or whom she could attach to herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So weary was she of her young freedom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Or perhaps of its restriction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If she had an older relative with her, she could take lodgings
+and live more according to her taste. For, of course, it was forbidden
+her to live alone, just as she must not stay at a hotel, and
+just as there were a very few pensions, coffee-houses, restaurants
+and even streets that she might frequent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes it struck her as absurd when people said in quite
+shocked voices, “Good Heavens, you mustn’t go there. One can
+see that you’re a stranger here!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she always acquiesced. She knew too well that she herself
+had lost her standards. For a while she had thought defiantly
+that she was old and stable enough to permit herself any
+associates, any book, any manner of life. Then she had found
+out that she could not swim in the troubled, swirling waters
+into which she had plunged. When she was close to drowning
+<a id="page-243" class="pagenum" title="243"></a>
+her pride had forsaken her and she was submissive and grateful
+that a firm hand had pulled her out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She no longer felt secure. She had thought she could plunge
+into the sea without danger—now she was glad when expert
+hands prepared her bath for her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes she was slightly embarrassed when an astonished
+glance rested upon her because she let slip that she had read a
+book, or seen a play which were strictly forbidden to young
+ladies of “her station.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes she had to fight down a free and easy manner
+that had become so natural to her in the last few months that
+she noticed nothing improper in it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes she thought almost with gratitude of Aunt Emily.
+At least she had taught Myra how to hold her knife and fork,
+and it would have been bad had she had to pay attention to
+such details and live in fear of violating etiquette. But in all
+matters of form, her “good training” had become blood of her
+blood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From time to time she was in doubt as to whether a young
+lady of good family might go alone to the opera, or might
+be invited by an acquaintance whom she had met in the city to
+partake of a tart in a pastry-shop. Then she would think in a
+flash, “What would Aunt Emily say in so difficult a dilemma?”
+And as Aunt Emily averred nearly everything to be unseemly,
+reprehensible and immoral, Myra could feel in obeying
+her that she was leading a blameless-life, even in the eyes
+of the sternest critic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had already considered if the most sensible course were
+not simply to summon Aunt Emily. Then she would have the
+infallible oracle in all matters of propriety at her elbow. She
+could rent a house, take the furniture out of storage, have a
+home, receive visitors, give little parties. Besides, there was no
+occasion for contentions of any sort. Even Aunt Emily could
+have nothing to say against her present associates.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-244" class="pagenum" title="244"></a>
+Myra was tamed. It made quite a difference whether one
+viewed the world, the blooming laughing world, always from
+the inside of a cage, against whose bars one continually batted
+one’s head and wings in an effort to escape, if just for once. Or
+whether one were flying back, tired out at evening, somewhat
+scratched and ruffled, to steal voluntarily into the comfortable
+cage and find refuge there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of course, the door would always remain open now, Myra
+was of age.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instantly she recalled that she had come of age a few months
+too late. Otherwise Olga Radó would still be living, living
+with her, free at last of all cares and debts and worries, in a
+beautiful cozy home such as she had always wanted. She would
+be alive and happy, her laugh would still ring out for the
+world’s delight—and her bell-toned voice, and her beautiful
+proud face and her delicate, strong hands. Yes, none of these
+would have been destroyed, annihilated, extinguished—had
+there been no Aunt Emily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And hate blazed up in Myra again like a red flame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The voices from the tennis court drew nearer. White flannels
+flashed amongst the blackish-red foliage of a purple-beech and
+the golden-yellow leaves of a maple. The first pair turned the
+corner, passed the rose-trellis, and approached the terrace—Gwen
+and Fred Wietinghoff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Peters smiled in greeting to her beautiful daughter. The
+smile still further revealed her long prominent, rather uneven
+teeth, stopped with all kinds of fillings, embellished with specks
+of white porcelain, encircled with threads of gold as fine as a
+hair. Her teeth were the same color as the big dull gray pearl
+in her beautifully shaped ear and gave the same impression
+of some infinitely fragile, infinitely precious object which must
+be preserved at any price and with the most tender solicitude.
+Without the teeth her regular, somewhat withered but haughty
+features, crowned by a pile of carefully waved blonde hair carefully
+<a id="page-245" class="pagenum" title="245"></a>
+restrained by a net, regardless of fashion, might almost
+have been called handsome.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She smiled proudly and complacently. She had every right to.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was delighted anew by the lovely firm way in which
+Gwen set down her tiny foot with its springy ankle, and by the
+slender firm body under its white dress, and the curly hair glistening
+and fluttering in the sunlight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sight of her filled Myra’s heart with a buoyant delight—but
+it did not throb faster by a single beat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was just as pleased to see Fred Wietinghoff, who was
+walking beside Gwen. He was much taller than she, broad-shouldered,
+and narrow in the hips, all the contours of his muscles
+showing under his silk shirt. He looked like a twenty-year-old.
+But when the light fell on his face, a network of sharp little
+wrinkles was visible in his clear, golden brown skin around his
+eyes and mouth, and a few white threads in his smooth metallic
+blond hair, at the temples.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she was pleased, too, when she saw Vandahl whose
+eager eyes were seeking out his young wife from a distance,
+and blinking a greeting to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And she was pleased when she saw Henry Rantzau and
+young Lucius appear behind the others, plunged as deeply in
+conversation, which the younger man was accompanying
+with sweeping gestures, as if they were strolling somewhere
+across a lonely field, and not going to meet a group of people
+who were expecting and watching them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My dears, I’m dying of thirst!” It was Gwen’s first utterance
+as she took the last steps of the terrace at a bound.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She ran to the tea-wagon behind Myra, and poured raspberry
+juice and ice water into a cut-glass goblet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the utmost composure, Fred took the goblet from her
+as she was about to carry it to her lips and drained it at
+a draught.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What is the meaning of that?” she asked amazed and angry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-246" class="pagenum" title="246"></a>
+“I’m sacrificing myself for you again,” he said with unshakable
+equanimity. “I’ve warned you against inflaming your
+lungs. I beg you, when you are thirsty, drink tea. May I pour
+you a cup?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I <em>will</em> drink water!” Gwen stamped her foot in annoyance.
+“Give me that carafe, I’m dying of thirst!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You won’t die of thirst for some time yet,” replied Fred.
+“You’re really hardly thirsty at all, but since you’ve never suffered
+from thirst in your life you have no standards by which
+to judge. Drink a cup of lukewarm tea, it will be very good for
+you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I don’t want lukewarm tea,” said Gwen between laughter
+and anger. “I drink hot tea in winter and ice water in summer.
+I’m going to drink water and if I get inflammation of the
+lungs, it’s no concern of yours.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good heavens,” said Fred pityingly, “what a little sixteen-year-old!
+You’re not so young any more that you make yourself
+‘cute’ that way. Probably you think it’s very romantic to toss off
+a glass of ice water in a fit of youthful impetuosity when you’re
+overheated with playing, and then be carried off by inflammation
+of the lungs in the flower of your youth.” He was sitting
+on the arm of a basket-chair, swinging his foot in its heelless
+shoe. “Inflammation of the lungs is a horrid malady with
+phlegm and spittle—not in the least poetic. In fact, there is no
+poetic sickness.” He straightened his shoulders slightly. “Only
+health is poetic, but everything from a saber cut to typhus is
+prosaic and disgusting and mostly connected with bad smells.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Fred, you’re disgusting.” She turned her back on him.
+“You’re positively not fit to enter a drawing-room. I’m going to
+tell your mother so.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’ll think you’re slandering me!” He smiled complacently
+and somewhat mischievously. “She knows you can’t
+bear me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-247" class="pagenum" title="247"></a>
+Vandahl had moved a stool beside his young wife’s chair.
+Myra observed how his big well-formed hands caressed the
+folds of her dress stealthily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A radiant stream of tenderness was constantly playing on
+him from her soft brown eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was a little anxious on her account. She looked so
+happy, and apparently worshipped her husband so idolatrously.
+If only she had finished with her hours of pain! The wish
+burned in Myra’s heart like a mute prayer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rantzau and Lucius were leaning against the stone balustrade.
+Myra could catch disjointed fragments of their conversation
+when the others were silent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why not? The electrons that are thrown off by the so-called
+cathode rays have a velocity of something like a quarter of a
+million kilometer seconds.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Rantzau’s deep, vibrant voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gwen seated herself on the arm of Myra’s chair and put her
+arm around her shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Protect me, Myra,” she said, “everybody makes me angry
+and seems horrid to me. You are the only person here whom I
+really like!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Gwen,” Myra smiled up at her, “it’s a good thing that
+you don’t have to cross any bridges tonight!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gwen’s face grew serious. “I’ll kill somebody yet,” she said
+as if she were telling a fairy-tale, “and I’ll bury the corpse in a
+cellar and steal everything valuable and bury that in the forest.
+Then I’ll go somewhere, to the courts, to the police or the senate
+and tell everything. Then everybody will laugh and pity
+me and say, ‘Poor child, she has a fever, she’s delirious—that’s
+Mr. Peters’ little daughter! get a car, and take the youngster
+home, her mother ought to pack her off to bed, she’s got the
+measles.’ And then the bailiff or an officer will take me home
+so that nothing may happen to me on the way. Oh, Myra have
+<a id="page-248" class="pagenum" title="248"></a>
+you had any of the short-cake? Deuli makes them simply divine!
+They make life worth living. But I’ve never yet been able
+to eat enough of them. I’ve stipulated that when I get married
+I want you to give me a bath-tub full of short-cakes. And on
+my wedding-day I’ll eat short-cake from morning till night.
+Eat something, Myra—I really believe that you live on air and
+love.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“On air perhaps,” said Fred dryly, “as far as I can judge
+your consumption of the other so-called popular commodity,
+I couldn’t last a week on your rations.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra took good care not to understand his remark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d like to live on air,” she said, breathing in the breeze that
+came from the garden. Despite the fragrance of the roses, it
+was strong and sharp and smelled a little of the sea. “On pure
+fresh air!”
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-17">
+<a id="page-249" class="pagenum" title="249"></a>
+XVII
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Myra sat beside Gwen in the car.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My hair looks something terrible, doesn’t it?” said Gwen.
+“If mamma sees me like this, she’ll begin to lecture me. How
+do you manage to keep your hair in place? You danced too!
+Mamma would be delighted with you. In fact, mamma likes
+you a whole lot. She’s always holding you up to me as a model.
+But even that doesn’t make me dislike you. I’m really quite
+smitten with you, really—but I think you don’t like me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra laid her arms lightly around her shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Silly little Gwen,” she said, smiling. “You don’t know what
+you’re chattering.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s nice,” said Gwen, cuddling up to her like a little
+kitten, “leave your arm there, it feels nice. I know very well
+what I’m talking about. Mamma always says ‘Don’t talk, you’re
+dizzy with dancing,’ because she insists that I talk so much
+nonsense after a dance—more than usual. But I’m really not
+dizzy with dancing, and I know that I like you a lot, and I
+know too that you don’t like me. And you don’t contradict
+me either, you’re much too honest for that. You say, ‘Don’t talk
+nonsense, little Gwen,’ which is what people always tell little
+children when they happen to hit on the truth. But I don’t want
+to embarrass you. Your eyes look very sad now because you
+don’t know how you’re going to get out of this mess.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was thinking,” said Myra honestly, “that you are a very
+charming little creature and that I like you very much indeed—and
+that nevertheless I disavowed you today and said you
+were not my friend.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At the table,” said Gwen seriously, “I felt it. But it doesn’t
+<a id="page-250" class="pagenum" title="250"></a>
+make me angry with you.” She smiled. “You oughtn’t to admit
+it either, if you want to keep in the good graces of my dear
+Henry. Did he tell you what a beast I am?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He said nothing at all,” replied Myra, shocked. “How on
+earth did you know that I said it to Rantzau?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Because I know <em>him</em>!” said Gwen triumphantly. “He hates
+me like—like sin would hardly be the proper expression. But
+I know he does, and I know why.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By these words and by the expression of Gwen’s face Myra
+felt somewhat repelled. “She’s like every other woman,” she
+thought contemptuously. “She thinks that Henry Rantzau
+hates her because he loves her and she doesn’t love him! Now
+she’ll tell me that she broke with him on some occasion. It’s
+the only thing that these little creatures can get through their
+heads.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shall I tell you why your friend hates me?” A thousand
+little imps were dancing on Gwen’s face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you like,” said Myra somewhat coolly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve taken his friend away from him!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What does that mean—taking a friend away? Can a
+woman take a man’s friend away from him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“From Henry? Oh, yes! For he wants his friend all to himself,
+hair and hide, body and soul. Don’t try to pretend, dear
+little Miss Innocence, that you haven’t noticed what the whole
+town knows!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Strange,” Myra shook her head, “all that a town knows!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stranger yet is all that it doesn’t know!” said Gwen with a
+laugh. “All that goes on in its midst without anybody’s suspecting
+it. But Rantzau is known because he’s a public menace.
+He has an influence over young men that is nothing short of
+uncanny. He’s always got a circle around him that idolizes him.
+And I don’t like that....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You mean when somebody else is idolized?” teased Myra.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, exactly,” declared Gwen defiantly. “That one thing I
+<a id="page-251" class="pagenum" title="251"></a>
+can’t stand at all is to see a man idolized by men. I don’t know
+if I can explain it, but you see the essential thing about human
+beings is their sex. The great two-fold division of all life—it’s
+not my own idea, of course. Later on there’s the division into
+races, with the races dividing into nations, the nations into
+classes and families, each of them struggling against the others.
+I am a bourgeois as compared with the nobility and an aristocrat
+as compared with the plebs. But first and foremost I am a
+woman in contrast to a man, and the most unpardonable insult
+that can be offered me is one to my sex. Don’t you understand
+that? If a man can’t see me because he worships another
+woman, that doesn’t wound my vanity. But a man for whom
+no woman is good enough, who prefers men, who is contemptuous
+of my whole sex—oh, it drives me almost insane with
+anger. Rantzau is incorruptible—I know that—but I lure away
+his favorites, one after the other. Ever since I could think, no,
+ever since I could feel, we’ve waged a bitter war. Do you know,
+Myra, sometimes it seems like a holy mission to me and not
+just an amusing game!” There was a strange light in her eyes,
+they blazed like blue jewels. “He loved Fred Reimer, for example,
+loved him insanely. But Fred is very happily married
+today. What do I get out of it? Well, sometimes when I see his
+wife, I think, ‘You owe it to me and you never even suspect it.’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What a queer mixture you are.” Myra looked at her, shaking
+her head reflectively. “A well-bred, sheltered girl and yet....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And yet? Go ahead and say it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, nothing. But tell me, how does it happen that your
+parents don’t notice anything—Henry Rantzau, for instance,
+whose reputation the whole town knows?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you know, Myra,” said Gwen with a superior smile,
+“that parents have an unerring eye only for what doesn’t exist?”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“I’m coming out directly,” called Gwen from behind the
+door of the bathroom where one could hear the splashing of
+<a id="page-252" class="pagenum" title="252"></a>
+water and the pelting of a shower. “Take a seat, Myra, and
+pick up a book! I’ll be ready in five minutes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have time,” said Myra quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Gwen wished to shorten her wait for her. “You’ll find
+something to look at. There’s a package on the table. I bought
+myself some stockings today. See if you don’t think they’re
+stunning. But you mustn’t open what’s under them, something
+flat in tissue paper. Ah, I’ll show it to you anyhow. Go ahead
+and open it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not curious.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go on, go on, open it. It’s better that you should look at it
+when I’m not there. Then I won’t have to blush at least. Hurry
+up, I’ll be out in two minutes! Do you hear? I’m already
+emerging from the crystal flood, and when I’m halfway dry,
+I’ll be out there!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra removed the tissue paper. She looked into Fred Wietinghoff’s
+face, lifelike and expressive. She felt a flash of pleasure
+pass over her as she studied the handsome features, and almost
+at the same moment a childish desire to steal the picture
+so that she could always have it before her eyes, and could delight
+in it when she was far from here.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For she was perfectly conscious at that moment, without
+thinking about it at all, that she would leave Hamburg in a
+very short time. She had never yet thought of the change, but
+suddenly she saw herself with visionary distinctness, so self-evidently
+that there was nothing terrifying about it, in a state
+of loneliness in which this picture would make pleasant company
+for her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She started when Gwen leaned over her shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Handsome picture, what?” she laughed. “You started so
+just now that I might imagine you have a little weakness
+for the gentleman. Confess the truth, Myra! Out with it. You
+were so lost in the picture, so lost that you didn’t hear me
+coming.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-253" class="pagenum" title="253"></a>
+Myra put down the picture without glancing at it again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Because my thoughts were somewhere else entirely,” she
+said, still rather distractedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Too bad,” teased Gwen, “where else if not with Fred? Certainly
+not with me, I’m afraid. Very far off? Don’t you want
+to tell me where?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She laid her soft bare arm around Myra’s neck, pressing it
+against her cheeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know where myself,” said Myra. “Not in the past
+and not in the present. Somewhere I’ve never yet been. Perhaps
+in the future. I have a feeling, quite indistinct and hazy, of a
+snowed-up lonely house.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gwen shook her by the shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come out of it,” she cried, “you’re supposed to be here and
+not in any snowed-up lonely houses. How do you like our
+friend, Freddy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<em>Our</em> friend?” repeated Myra with a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course ours. He’s your friend as much as mine. He thinks
+a great deal of you, a great deal!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He only says that to make you jealous,” said Myra consolingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Make me jealous!” Gwen laughed aloud. “No, I’m not that
+petty. And besides, you mean too much to me. I’m always very
+proud, really, my heart is filled with pleasure when I hear
+people praising you. And Fred praises you very often....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He would send me his picture if he really thought so much
+of me,” thought Myra. “If it weren’t all just silly talk, he’d
+send me his picture. I don’t want anything more of him than
+that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you really like him?” Gwen asked it lightly. But Myra
+felt something watchful, almost lowering in her look.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s good looking and has a very agreeable disposition,”
+she said indifferently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-254" class="pagenum" title="254"></a>
+“Nothing more?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra did not want to reply. “I don’t know much more about
+him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He is discreet and trustworthy,” said Gwen after hesitating
+a moment. Then she laughed through her teeth, “And he has
+very good taste!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perhaps,” said Myra somewhat guardedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes she had a feeling of fear in the presence of this
+fair-haired child. Frequently she was afraid to put a question
+because she did not want to hear the answer—an answer that
+would tear off the thin covering of the abyss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly Gwen stroked her cheeks with a childish gesture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t be angry,” she said gently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra laid her lips against that soft little fragrant hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why should I be angry at you, you child?” she asked, smiling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she knew very well that she had been angry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell me something!” begged Gwen. “Yes, sit right down
+beside me here and tell me something. I’ll lie down, I’m a little
+tired from my bath, and you sit beside me and we’ll jaw a little.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With one hand she drew Myra fawningly to the divan, with
+the other she held together her kimono of peach-bloom china
+crêpe which showed every line of her slim, soft body.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She adjusted her mountain of pillows and made herself
+comfortable on it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra sat quiet and erect beside her on a chair. She always
+felt rather stiff in the presence of so much sinuous grace, and a
+little frosty in the warm breath of this sunny creature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you know, Myra,” said Gwen after a while, “that I
+haven’t got a step closer to you since the first day you came
+here? You allow me to call you by your first name. Sometimes
+you call me by mine, but mostly you omit it because it’s
+<a id="page-255" class="pagenum" title="255"></a>
+so counter to your nature. No, no, you don’t have to make a
+polite denial! You are quite a stranger to me. Never, never,
+never do you tell me anything of your own volition. Sometimes
+you’ll answer one out of ten of my questions. I don’t even trust
+myself to ask you questions any more for fear I’ll frighten you
+away so that you’ll never come back again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And what do I know of you either?” asked Myra without
+looking at her. “You are just as much of a stranger to me. You
+have a very childlike and open nature. My own, perhaps, is
+more reserved and cold, but there may be a hundred times bigger
+and more serious secrets hidden behind your innocent little
+mask than behind my reticence.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s still another matter,” Gwen interrupted sharply. “I
+can’t ever tell you anything, either, because you always put me
+off! Many times I feel the need of confiding in you, something
+that is worrying me, or simply occupying my attention. But
+you always turn me aside, or you make such a face that the
+words stick in my throat. As if, Heaven help you, you didn’t
+want to know anything about me, in order not to despise me.
+Or as if you already knew too much and were afraid of permitting
+any affection. Then again I feel that you really are not cold
+and lacking in understanding, you are not a prude, and you
+have no right to be.... Oh, Myra, don’t be angry with me
+for saying that! But you can never make me believe that you’ve
+spent your life sitting and knitting in a quiet friendly way with
+a lot of old ladies.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra laughed. “I’ve never tried to make you think so.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But you act that way,” said Gwen hopelessly. “You’re like
+a stone that won’t give off a spark no matter how hard you
+strike it. Oh, Myra, I can’t get rid of the feeling that I could
+strike a whole series of fireworks out of you—such glorious fireworks!
+Am I not steel enough, or what is the matter? It torments
+me terribly....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-256" class="pagenum" title="256"></a>
+She was so shaken with emotion that the tears came into her
+eyes. She stretched her limbs as if in convulsions and tore the
+silk cushions with her teeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly she sat up, and throwing her arms around Myra’s
+neck, rubbed her face, between tears and laughter, against her
+shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell me, Myra,” she wheedled, “tell me what I’ve known
+for a long time. Some time in your life you have been in love
+with a woman. You know how it can be—how heavenly it can
+be! Why don’t you like me, Myra? Am I not good enough for
+you? Not beautiful enough? Or do you think I haven’t had
+any experience? Or do you think I’d betray you? Why don’t
+you say something? Do you despise me so that you don’t think
+I’m worth an answer?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra gritted her teeth and sat a little more stiffly. “I don’t
+know, my child,” she said with a labored smile and lifeless eyes.
+“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why do you suspect
+me of such a thing?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stop!” said Gwen almost angrily, laying her hand on Myra’s
+mouth. “I don’t suspect anything—I <em>know</em>! You can keep
+quiet as long as you like. I’ll never force you to tell me, but I
+won’t let myself be deceived. And I won’t let myself be pointed
+out as a mad woman. I know that I’m right. Not because, as
+you’re thinking now, I’ve heard some gossip. I have a feeling
+for such things. Dear little Myra, if you were to sit in front of
+your mirror for a week and practice a face for me like a stone
+mask, it would still bear the stamp. Your hands would have it,
+and your eyelids and the corner of your mouth—here—this corner
+of your dear proud, yearning mouth. Promise me, Myra,
+promise me one thing—I believe that you live like a saint and
+want to live that way—but I know too, that you can’t. You
+can’t do it much longer. But when it gets too much for you,
+call me. I would like to kiss you until your yearning mouth is
+<a id="page-257" class="pagenum" title="257"></a>
+quite sated. I would like to see you bloom in all your tenderness
+you rose of Jericho! And if I could not bring it about, at least
+I should like to be present. Oh, Myra, you’re making a face as
+if I were saying hateful things. The ecstasy of the beautiful
+human body <em>is</em> beautiful, and the throbbing pulse and the gasping
+breath of someone we love is the most beautiful music in
+the world. Everything else, art and sport, and alcohol and morphine,
+are just miserable attempts at substitutes for the one real
+thing—for love.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So many things are called love!” said Myra with a bitter
+taste in her mouth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I call love the thrill of the blood and the ravishment of the
+senses. And it is something I should like to give everybody.”
+Gwen sat up and the soft silk slid from her wonderfully modelled
+shoulders. Her eyes blazed with blue fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, not everybody, but the beautiful, the profound, the
+warm, the sensitive, those who hunger and those who thirst,
+and I would like to give it to them because I am capable of
+giving it, because I am rich, because God has given it to me.
+And God gives no man anything to keep for himself but He
+cannot be too lavish because He has to give to so many. We are
+here as God’s stewards, we are here to save Him trouble, that is
+why He gives us so much, in order that we may share it with
+the most worthy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra shook her head. “You talk like the angel in a Christmas
+story, and you come out with these lovely theories in a Christmas
+story voice. Sometimes I have a feeling that you have no
+idea what you are saying. You are like a strip of garden in
+which a strange hand has strewn all possible seeds, so that it is
+surprised itself at all the gay flowers that come to light. But I
+am afraid I know the gardener who has made such a wildflower
+garden out of you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Myra,” wheedled Gwen, “tell me one thing, please, please,
+tell me. Are you in love with Fred?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-258" class="pagenum" title="258"></a>
+“Nonsense,” said Myra in a hard voice. “What makes you
+think such a thing?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perhaps not love,” said Gwen hesitantly, “perhaps you call
+‘love’ something else. But don’t you feel that he’s wonderfully
+stimulating?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra made a face, and without answering, rose and went to
+the window. She heard the soft silk behind her rustle and
+crinkle. Gwen thrust her sinuous body between Myra and the
+window-pane, beyond which lay the wintry garden. Her angelic
+face was suffused with red. Her large eyes under their
+long lashes were filled with tears. Her blonde hair, tousled
+and damp from her bath, trembled in ringlets and curls about
+her childish face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She pursed her lips as if she were struggling against violent
+tears and clung to the folds of Myra’s waist with her soft little
+hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you dislike me so much?” she asked shyly. “Do you?
+Am I really so distasteful to you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Laughing, Myra kissed her round firm cheeks with their
+peach-bloom complexion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are very sweet!” she said sincerely.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“I’d rather not,” said Myra, knitting her brows slightly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Myra!” Gwen stamped her foot angrily. “I can’t understand
+you! How can it hurt you to go too? And you would be pleasing
+me so much! We had it planned so nicely. Really no sensible
+person can see anything wrong in our going together....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But your parents,” Myra objected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You will simply be doing them a favor if you don’t let me
+go alone to visit a bachelor in his apartment! For I’m going
+anyway! But it would be much nicer if you’d come too. And
+Fred will show you his library!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That was the only thing that could tempt Myra as Gwen
+knew very well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-259" class="pagenum" title="259"></a>
+Myra would very much have liked to see the rooms and the
+books. She felt something akin to envy when she thought
+that Gwen and Fred would enjoy tea and a pleasant hour of
+conversation in what was undoubtedly a very pretty and tasteful
+apartment—while she would not be there. Because of stubbornness,
+because of obstinacy, because of a silly shyness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had done many other things which had still less to do
+with conventionality and propriety. She had done them from
+passion, from caprice, from pity—or from stupidity. For the
+first time in her life she was anxiously resisting an innocent
+dereliction from the conventional such as this tea with a young
+unmarried man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly all her defiance rose within her. Why should she
+deny herself a pleasure because these well-born and highly
+conventional families could thenceforth refuse to receive her
+in their expensively furnished and meticulously clean houses?
+Let these families first so educate their sons and daughters that
+they did not wantonly strive to disturb the hard-won peace of
+a poor defenseless Myra Rudloff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll go with you,” she said, gritting her teeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gwen clasped her jubilantly in her arms.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+A soft, but bright light streamed over a noble polished table.
+Gleaming bronze. Deep luxurious carpets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Isn’t it beautiful here?” asked Gwen, and strutted about
+proudly, showing this and extolling that as if it were all her
+property, or rather her own handiwork.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She moved through the rooms with an assurance that gave
+no indication that she was visiting them for the first time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And you must see the Corot!” Whereupon she rushed into
+the adjoining room, and lit a concealed lamp that cast a flood
+of light on the picture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra followed her, an ironic smile on her lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought I was supposed to go with you so that you could
+<a id="page-260" class="pagenum" title="260"></a>
+explore this place!” she murmured. “But you really seem to be
+quite at home here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gwen laughed, not in the least offended or embarrassed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Haven’t I ever told you that I was here before? Not alone,
+of course. I came to tea then, too. Old Mrs. Wietinghoff was
+here and mamma. Wait, some member of my family was with
+me. Fred, who was with me when I had tea here before?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A newspaper rustled in the next room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What did you say, dear?” came Fred’s voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Idiot!” she said in a low voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra laughed too. It was very easy to see through the whole
+affair, and take in at a glance the tangle that a word had uncovered.
+She told herself that it was all right. But she did not
+feel any sincere pleasure. Her feelings said to her, “Go, you are
+superfluous here, perhaps even in the way. You are playing a
+part which has been forced upon you, and which doesn’t suit
+you.” But she would have scolded herself for being a silly prude
+if she had given in to this feeling and gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gwen put her arm around Myra and drew her toward the
+door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What does Fred mean?” she asked as she stood in the door.
+“I don’t recall that we ever herded swine together.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fred laid down the paper with some embarrassment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why the image, Miss Peters? I trust you will pardon me
+for glancing at the paper a moment while you ladies were
+out of the room. Have I absent-mindedly said something improper?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gwen sat on the arm of a leather chair and dangled her legs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Improper? Oh, no, it’s all right,” she said magnanimously.
+“You only addressed me familiarly through an error. You are
+so accustomed to having visitors whom you address familiarly,
+that it never even occurs to you to do anything else.
+Moreover, I just observed in the next room that you are an
+idiot!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-261" class="pagenum" title="261"></a>
+“Which clarifies matters perfectly.” Fred bowed slightly.
+“But my dear Miss Rudloff,” he turned to Myra, “let us make
+the extraordinary and highly improbable assumption that I
+did not make a mistake in identity, but really blurted something
+out, as they say. It would simply be a further proof of
+how much inferior men are to women in the arts of lying and
+deception.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A woman simply could not blurt out something and address
+someone familiarly. She simply couldn’t carry damaging
+letters around in her coat pocket for a week just because
+she forgot to take them out and destroy them. She simply
+couldn’t be trapped under any circumstances.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But a man is so simple, so transparent, so trusting, so innocent....”
+His manner was intentionally sanctimonious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!” Gwen interrupted. “Stop, my friend!
+The woman may be more discreet, more distrustful, more
+anxious—but only because she has more to fear. Once let a man
+get caught, let him be observed, or let him blurt out something,
+or let his correspondence be found—what then? He denies it!
+With a coolness, with a face as if—well, with cheek, in short!
+I know hundreds of cases....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“From your own experience?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, thank God! It ‘simply couldn’t happen to me in any
+case.’ But let me go on. You’re just afraid that I’ll say something
+to the point, and that’s why you’re trying to get me off
+the track....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why should I be afraid?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Because you’re vain like all men. In the first place, you don’t
+like anybody but you to say something good, and in the second,
+you don’t like to feel that somebody sees through and through
+you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But <em>you</em> haven’t let <em>me</em> go on. I was going to say, why should
+I be afraid that you would say something good, something to
+the point? The fear would not be well founded.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-262" class="pagenum" title="262"></a>
+“Oh, Myra, he’s common. Don’t you think he’s simply frightfully
+common to talk to me like that? But I’m going to say just
+what I wanted now, straight out. I know hundreds of cases of
+men who deceive their wives. And when the wife thinks she
+has finally got some irrefutable proof in her hands, when she
+has jealously watched her husband for weeks, and has finally
+seen him or found a letter—what happens then? Then the husband
+explains that his wife is blind or stupid, she is mistaken,
+or it was Miss Mayer with whom she saw him, or the letter is
+quite innocent, or it is a practical joke on the part of a crony.
+He goes into a rage or he laughs. In any event, he’s in the
+right....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m astonished!” Fred leaned far back in his easy-chair,
+crossed his legs, joined his finger-tips and shook his head at her.
+“I am astonished! Such fullness of wisdom in such a little
+curly head! You must have had all the assembled washwomen,
+cooks and children’s maids of all your acquaintances instruct
+you in their marital experiences.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good heavens!” Gwen’s delicate nostrils twitched contemptuously.
+“As if the upper ten were any different! To be sure,
+they call their hang-out a Club. But they deceive their wives
+just the same.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Those less decent souls excepted,” said Fred in his measured
+way, “who do not marry in order to escape that embarrassment.
+But may I add an observation to your argument, young lady?
+Why is the husband believed when he offers the most threadbare
+explanations, when he declares the most striking proof of
+his infidelity to be innocent? Because women are so anxious to
+believe! Why do the wives look for proofs? Because they want
+divorces? Oh, no! Because they want their fears quieted. How
+is a matter of no moment. There is no more ghastly bare brutality
+than to tell a jealous woman to her face, ‘You are quite
+right, I love somebody else!’ A fig for the man who could do
+such a thing!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-263" class="pagenum" title="263"></a>
+“But why are women so petty and so—so horribly silly?”
+asked Gwen, her face blazing. “Why do they let themselves be
+deceived and rejoice when they are deceived still further?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fred joined his finger-tips and reflected for a moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perhaps it can be explained in a single sentence,” he said
+with a rather malicious smile. “Women always love most that
+which is closest to them, and men that which is farthest from
+them. Or to put it more clearly, a woman loves that man the
+most who has most often possessed her—and a man loves that
+woman the most whom he will never possess.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A shade of melancholy passed quickly over his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shall we look at some illustrations?” he asked, springing up.
+“Have you any special preferences? Doré or Rackham, Cornelius
+of Bayros? They’re all here. See, this is beautiful! Do
+you feel the same enjoyment in handling buckskin? Or do
+you understand anyone’s taking a really insane delight in it?
+Just feel this,” he handed Myra a flexible volume in red leather.
+“Isn’t it splendid?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, it’s just like velvet!” said Gwen crossly, swinging her
+dangling legs faster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Velvet!” He shrugged his shoulders indignantly. “This low
+little person is trying to provoke me! There are silly people who
+mean to flatter such leather by saying it’s like velvet! As a result,
+I have a real aversion to velvet. It always gives me a horrible
+dusty feeling under my finger-tips.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra opened the book. Her glance chanced on the graceful
+curlicues of an illustrator whose peculiar style was unfamiliar
+to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For God’s sake!” Fred laid both hands with fingers spread,
+on the pages of the book. “You may feel the books, but you
+mustn’t look at the pictures. They are not for young ladies.
+Afterwards, you’ll tell Auntie that I’ve been showing you improper
+pictures. But I really have young ladies’ books in my
+<a id="page-264" class="pagenum" title="264"></a>
+library and only keep this single volume because of its beautiful
+binding.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are they pictures that one shouldn’t look at?” asked Myra
+calmly. “I know a great many such and they always fascinate
+me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course, you may look at them.” Fred took his hands away
+and drew himself up. “I was only jesting. Any sensible person
+may look at and enjoy them. Look at them as much as you like.
+Moreover, the book is a rarity. It has been suppressed. You probably
+know that the illustrator has been banished?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said Myra in surprise. “I didn’t know it! But why?”
+She eagerly snatched at any subject of conversation that would
+permit her to take her eyes from the book. She was rather afraid
+to turn over the page, and even more afraid, if anything, of
+appearing prudish and cowardly if she put it down without
+looking through it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So she laid it open on her knees, glancing rather deliberately
+in the other direction—for example at Fred’s assured and reassuring
+face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why!” Fred shrugged his shoulders. “Probably a temperance
+union would expel Kotanyi Janos, too. Not because he
+drinks, but because he manufactures paprika and paprika helps
+along the thirst. Mankind is divided into four classes. Two of
+these classes, the extremes, belong together. The first class (sequence
+has nothing to do with rank or I would begin elsewhere)
+are those who thirst but do not drink. They are the
+happy ones. The second class comprises those who have thirst
+but nothing to drink. They are the revolutionists. The third
+class—those who have all they can drink but are not thirsty.
+The hypocrites and the bourgeois. The fourth class—those who
+drink and who are thirsty. They are the happiest of all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then, of course, there are numerous smaller subdivisions.
+For example, those who stand before a spring but cannot drink
+because they have no glass. Or those who drink and suffer
+<a id="page-265" class="pagenum" title="265"></a>
+stomach-aches afterwards. Or those who have a perfectly marvellous
+thirst, but eat something hot anyway, so that the hock
+will taste all the better afterwards. Or those who sit in a wine-cellar
+and go thirsty because there is no white Burgundy. And
+there are people to whom champagne only tastes good mixed
+with Port, or with Angostura, who like the sweetness only because
+there is a trace of bitterness along with it. Or people who
+pour dark and pale wines together, who mix heavy warm
+Bordeaux with thin-blooded bubbling champagne in order to
+make it fizz. Ah, yes, there are tipplers of all sorts, and each believes
+that his taste is the best. Here is Frederick the Great with
+Menzel’s illustrations; that looks better in your thoughtful
+hands. But first and foremost, there’s our tea inside, gentle,
+mild, friendly, thought-provoking tea—it will stimulate us to
+more profitable conversation. This way, ladies.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+One, two hours had passed. It was Gwen and not Myra who
+first glanced at her watch and said that they must go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fred helped them on with their coats and kissed their hands
+in gratitude. They had to promise to come soon again. Myra
+promised gladly. The distinguished beauty of these rooms fascinated
+her. And Fred made a good impression, like most people,
+when seen among his own things. She looked forward with
+pleasure to the next chat they would have together. All the fear
+that had originally restrained her, had disappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But as she opened the heavy street door, she started and
+turned pale with terror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For God’s sake, Gwen, stay back! Your uncle, Senator
+Borgessen is passing! Suppose he sees us! What shall we tell
+him if he asks us where we’re coming from?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“From the dentist!” said Gwen with a laugh, pushing Myra
+out on to the street. “People like Fred always live in houses
+where there are dentists. But Borgessen! Why should I be afraid
+of Borgessen? He has at least as much reason to be afraid of me
+<a id="page-266" class="pagenum" title="266"></a>
+as I of him! The whole town knows that he has an affair with
+his cook. Moreover, he goes to the city every three weeks and
+throws away his money gambling. He can’t do it so well here.
+His money and Aunt Fanchette’s. Poor Aunt Fanchette! But
+she smells of sweat from the arm-pits—brr! Haven’t you ever
+noticed it? Such women deserve their fate!”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The air was full of early spring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There had been terrible storms so that one could not sleep at
+night, but sat up in bed with a beating heart and listened to the
+clatter of the tiles on the roof, to the shaking of the windows,
+and the banging of doors and thought with a shiver of the ships
+at sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly the storms had stopped for breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So abruptly, so without warning, that the silence was even
+more uncanny than the commotion. The air was heavy, full of
+sunlight and sweetness, and a strange fragrance as if it had
+been borne over fields of hyacinths and had never known tar,
+fish or salt water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The people on the street looked at each other as if to say,
+“Well, what on earth do you think of the weather?” And wherever
+two acquaintances met, on the street, in the street car or in
+a shop, they said, “Well, what on earth do you think of the
+weather?” And all who heard it, made an effort to conceal a
+smile on their wooden faces, for they had just heard their innermost
+thoughts revealed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra could not conceal her smile. But there was something
+so ingratiating, so deluding, about this still, soft air, this caressing
+sunlight, all this quite improbable and impossible spring,
+that she was suffused with a warm happiness which sought
+some expression. And as she could not sing, she smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was not occasioned by the spring alone. It was the feeling
+too that she could endure the spring without suffering. She
+<a id="page-267" class="pagenum" title="267"></a>
+felt well, like someone who moves his limbs for the first time
+after a long illness, and thinks every breath is a heavenly grace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m well again,” she told herself over and over like the refrain
+of a song. “I’m well again, well again!”
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-18">
+<a id="page-268" class="pagenum" title="268"></a>
+XVIII
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Gwen and Myra were sitting in a compartment of the moving
+train. Two elderly ladies, black, stiff and erect, were sitting opposite,
+watching them sharply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From time to time, Fred would come through the aisle
+and make faces, with the desired result that Gwen nearly died
+laughing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But if she controlled herself with an effort, she did everything
+in her power to make Myra laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Such shamelessness,” she said with pretended indignation.
+“Just see how that fellow stares in here every time he passes.
+Next time I’m going to report him to the conductor.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With an offended mien, she pushed her travelling cap on
+tighter in order to lean back and cross her legs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Myra was not to be made to laugh by any such antic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, don’t imagine that he stares in here because he likes
+your appearance!” she said quietly. “He is either a criminal or
+a detective looking for a criminal. You can see that at a glance.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good heavens, no!” Gwen continued the game in the highest
+spirits. “Don’t frighten the wits out of me! I read such a
+horrible story the other day—about a hardened criminal who
+was travelling in women’s clothes. Of course he was smooth
+shaven. But he had such a heavy growth of beard that he had to
+shave twice a day.” She spoke in a low voice, though just loud
+enough so that attentive ears could catch every word. With that
+her glance strayed with intentional carelessness over the rather
+downy face of the lady sitting opposite. “Just imagine, he was
+alone in the compartment with a young woman, on a long
+journey, and she saw—of course, at first she thought she must
+<a id="page-269" class="pagenum" title="269"></a>
+be mistaken—but she saw more and more distinctly that the
+face of the lady sitting opposite was gradually becoming covered
+with a growth of stubble! It must have been terrible! I think
+I’d have died of shock. As it was, I made a resolution never to
+travel alone. That’s why I begged you so hard to come with me
+today.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was glad to do it,” Myra assumed a worried expression, “if
+only Emma will take good care of the children. Bubbie was
+coughing so hard again this morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was too much even for Gwen. For a moment she stared
+at Myra’s immobile, serious face, then she burst out laughing,
+covering her mouth with her handkerchief and coughing in
+spasms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When at last they got off the train, they stood on the platform
+doubled up with laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra stared after the departing coaches. She had not been
+mistaken—a black-gloved hand rubbed the window clean, and
+a pointed nose was poked against it. An attentive glance followed
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gwen raised her hand to wave farewell, but Myra held her
+arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t,” Gwen tried to tear her arm away. “What do I care
+for the old witches? Good-bye, dear train, run along or run off
+the track! No, better not do that, there may be some nice people
+on you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come,” said Myra, “Fred is standing here closing and buckling
+his travelling bag, just in order not to attract attention—like
+a real detective. But we agreed that we should leave the station
+first. Come. He’s looking quite desperately in our direction.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They passed through the gates and the waiting-room out on
+to the street, which lay in a glare of sunlight. Five minutes later,
+Fred approached and tipped his hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I may make a suggestion to you ladies,” said Fred, “we
+<a id="page-270" class="pagenum" title="270"></a>
+will get my travelling bag from the station now, and armed
+with that, you can seek accommodations at a hotel. Ladies
+without luggage—that would never do! And you can’t tell
+every chambermaid and waiter the story about the lost last
+train.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And you?” asked Gwen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll borrow some kind of a suitcase from an acquaintance.
+We can provide ourselves with the most essential requisites for
+spending the night here on our way to the station. Then you
+can pack them in my bag and betake yourselves to the ‘Emperor’.
+In the meantime, I’ll look up my friend, Schmid, and
+borrow a suitcase with which to inspire confidence. In half an
+hour I’ll come to the hotel, go to the dining-room, and be insanely
+astonished to find you there. Agreed?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Splendid!” Gwen was again dancing for joy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stop! Stop! Stop! No pirouettes and toe-dancing, if you
+please! I beseech you, Miss Myra, watch out for the child, she’s
+going to queer us in the hotel and all over town. I don’t know
+whether I dare leave you alone with her for half an hour.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is only your presence that makes her so exuberant,” Myra
+assured him. “When she is alone with me, she is perfectly rational.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Indeed!” There was an odd twitch at the corners of Fred’s
+lips, his short sharp glance flew from Myra’s face to Gwen’s.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The early twilight had already fallen. Gwen drew the yellow
+curtains over the windows and turned on all the electric lights—the
+chandelier, the lamp on the night-table, the bulb over
+the wash-basin and the commode—so that the big hotel room
+was bathed in light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s how I like it.” She drew herself up like a purring kitten.
+“I must have light and warmth.” She tried the register under
+the window, a scorching heat poured out. “It’s beautiful!
+Like that! I detest a cold bedroom. At home the heat is always
+<a id="page-271" class="pagenum" title="271"></a>
+partially turned off because mamma thinks it’s unhealthy to
+sleep in a warm room. When I’m married, my bedroom will
+have to be as hot as a hot-house, so that I can sleep without a
+night-gown or covers!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She opened Fred’s bag and took out their small purchases.
+When that was done, she rummaged on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just see all the things he has in here! Wonderful soap, smell
+it, Myra! We’ll just keep it here. And a mouth-wash too. Shaving
+cream—we don’t need that. My God, how many brushes!
+Splendid, buckskin slippers. Not having any slippers with me
+is the most unpleasant part. I hate running around bare hotel
+floors in my bare feet. I must see what kind of pajamas he has.
+Violet and white. Very pretty. Do you want to wear pajamas?
+I think they’re very uncomfortable. But they’re very nice to take
+breakfast in in the morning. Do you know, I think they’re better
+looking on homely people than on pretty ones. Because
+you don’t see their necks and arms. But I’d like to wear them
+sometime just to see if they suit me, <span class="language" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bleu électrique</span> perhaps.
+And you must have strawberry ones, not <span class="language" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fraise</span>, but strawberry-colored.
+Judging by the French-German color designations,
+the French really are color-blind. We call <span class="language" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fraise, fraise
+écrassée</span>, and are surprised that we’ve never seen <span class="language" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fraise</span>-colored
+strawberries! Have you never had a shop-girl tell you, ‘We
+haven’t got that in blue, only in <span class="language" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bleu</span>’? Oh, the world is too
+idiotic. I have such a craving for some good alcohol. What
+drink do you like best? Do you want the right hand bed or the
+left? I suppose I’ll have to do up my hair again. Shall I wear
+the cap? It’s probably the most ladylike-looking. Are you ready?
+Shall we go down? How is it that your hair is always faultless?
+It isn’t so much shorter than mine. Do I look presentable? From
+the rear, from the front, from all sides? All right, then give me
+a kiss and come.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gwen turned again on the stairs. She brandished the key
+of their room at Myra before dropping it into her purse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-272" class="pagenum" title="272"></a>
+“The key! I took it out of the lock. They mustn’t find a
+gentleman’s bag with shaving materials and pajamas in our
+room. Fred must take it away as soon as he comes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was a little frightened at the big bright dining-room.
+She had completely forgotten how to look for a table, how to
+treat waiters, how to run over a wine-card. It was like an examination.
+And the worst of it was, that she could not defer the
+answer to these questions with a “We’re expecting someone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As they entered, her first glance rested on a mirror, and in
+that mirror she saw Fred’s face. He was glancing up over the
+paper, which he held in both hands. His eyes, which were big
+and candid and of a deep luminous blue, looked a greeting at
+her. From his glance, from his firm bright face issued a current
+of repose and security.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How good that he was here! How good that he was here!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently she saw his broad shoulders and fair head in front
+of the mirror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gwen began to giggle and nudge Myra. She made a motion
+as if she intended to rush over and frighten him by a slap on
+the shoulder. But Myra held her arm tightly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He has seen us,” she said softly, “just walk past as if you
+didn’t notice him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra heard his chair scrape behind them and his quick,
+long stride.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They greeted one another with complete astonishment. Fred
+looked for a larger table—he had purposely seated himself at
+a small one—and ordered the waiter to bring over his things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Carefully he selected a small supper and a good wine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Afterwards, we will have champagne,” he said when the
+waiter was out of ear-shot. “Of course,” with a hunch of his
+shoulders, “I will happen on the idea when he’s here. ‘Really,
+my dear ladies, we must celebrate this meeting with champagne!’
+Doesn’t that sound quite credible?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very,” Myra agreed with a laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-273" class="pagenum" title="273"></a>
+“Good heavens, the bag!” Gwen put her hand to her open
+mouth in terror, glancing from one to the other with her big
+frightened child’s eyes. “Fred, you must take your bag out of
+our room! What will the maid think of us? But don’t get
+caught, or they’ll have you arrested as a thief! That would be a
+wonderful joke. Watch, I’ll give you the key without anyone’s
+noticing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She rummaged in her purse, which she held under the table
+on her lap, drew out the key, squeezing it tight in her effort to
+hide it in her little hand, and thrust her clenched fist under the
+table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fred took the key from her, and slipping it into his trousers
+pocket, leaned back laughing in his chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wonderful!” he said, showing his firm white teeth, “now
+the whole room has seen you pass me the key without anyone’s
+noticing you! Well, I don’t mind. I don’t feel that I’m compromised
+any further. You look pretty enough!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He said it rather disdainfully, with a mocking twitch at the
+corner of his mouth. But his lowered eyes ran over Gwen with
+a glance in which there was something intimately appraising,
+and at the same time, burning and absorbing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What am I doing here?” thought Myra with a sudden pang.
+“Why must I be the witness of their affection? Simply because
+they want to guard their reputation? Ridiculous. They have
+certainly been alone together a hundred times before. They
+can’t be afraid that something will happen that has never happened
+yet. These two people know one another completely and
+without reserves. I’ve been aware of it for months. How could
+I have forgotten it again? What am I doing here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fred filled his glass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To good honest comradeship!” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll drink to that!” Myra raised her glass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fred tried to meet her glance with serious, candid eyes.
+“You’re a born comrade,” he said sincerely. “Loyal, clever, reticent
+<a id="page-274" class="pagenum" title="274"></a>
+and daring. You know, we often visualize people in another
+age, with different lives, in other rôles, so to speak. When
+I visualize you, it is always a thousand years ago, in the days of
+the knights and minnesingers. Then I see you in an esquire’s
+costume, following your chosen loved one. There are such figures
+in the old songs and sagas, and even in my boyhood they
+always stirred my emotion and admiration. A heroic maiden,
+without personal ambition, but all for love, enduring all hardships,
+sharing all doughty deeds, chided and praised, but never
+receiving the wages of passion until some time in the tumult of
+battle she receives a blow or a thrust, and the knight himself
+carries his faithful esquire into the tent in his arms. Then as
+he peels off the boy’s doublet a woman’s body lies exposed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you think he has talent?” teased Gwen. “He should
+run more with poets. And what am I? Utter yourself, Mr. Wietinghoff,
+in what rôle do you prefer to visualize me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are an unmistakable child of the twentieth century,”
+said Fred scornfully, “silly and precocious, spoiled and childish,
+fond of dress and arrogant....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gwen stamped her feet on the floor and opened her mouth
+for an unmannerly outcry, but Fred hastened to pacify her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But sweet,” he said hastily, “quite charming into the bargain,
+irresistible, enthralling, entrancing, enchanting!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It seems so,” laughed Gwen. “How did I ever enchant you
+that you’re so frightfully silly? Drink, children, I find the wine
+glorious and life a wonderfully beautiful affair.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra drank to her. The wine made her nerves tingle warmly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Comrade,” she thought, “a beautiful, a dear word. Comrade!
+I would like to be that, and I can be. Comradeship. That is my
+strength. But nobody has ever required it of me yet. I can be a
+comrade to this little girl and a comrade to this man. Whether
+they have other relations with one another or not, makes no
+difference to me, doesn’t affect me. Strange, nobody has ever
+yet wanted me for a comrade, not even Olga. And yet I feel as
+<a id="page-275" class="pagenum" title="275"></a>
+if a key to my inner nature has been given me in those words. I
+feel as if I could see into and recognize what is within me. I
+will always be grateful to Fred for giving me that clue.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They all remained in a good mood. Sometimes Gwen
+laughed so wantonly that Fred or Myra had to quiet her. Sometimes
+there was a humorous allusion which Myra did not understand.
+But she was no longer hurt by it. A good comrade must
+be trusting and patient in all matters. Must be able to overhear
+what he does not understand. And must be forever alert, must
+listen with ears peeled for a cry of need addressed to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the entrance to their room Fred said good night. He lingered
+over both their hands as he kissed them, though not a
+fraction of a second longer over one than over the other. But
+he carried Gwen’s fingers to his lips and gazed piercingly into
+her eyes. He bowed his head low over Myra’s hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tomorrow we’ll go to the sea!” Gwen danced exuberantly
+across the room. “Myra, sweet Myra, isn’t life beautiful? And
+isn’t it marvellous to go on a spree with Fred? Aren’t you fascinated
+by him? Well, something like that, you don’t have to
+be afraid of telling me, I’m not jealous! Only I won’t let myself
+be put out of business.... But otherwise.... You are a little
+in love with him, you don’t have to be afraid to tell me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think you’re rather tipsy, little mouse,” said Myra, smiling.
+“It’s high time that you crept into your bed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, high time—high time,” Gwen hummed softly. She
+undressed while she danced around the room, strewing her
+things on tables and chairs. “But I’m not tired. Are you tired,
+Myra? I hope not.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why not? What have you got up your sleeve?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, I’m going to the ball with you tonight, to the ‘feather
+ball.’ Didn’t you use to say that when you were a child? It’s
+silly, isn’t it? All children have the same stupid expressions
+and always think they’re wonderfully witty, and can repeat
+them a thousand times over. But when you grow older you don’t
+<a id="page-276" class="pagenum" title="276"></a>
+want to hear the best joke or eat the most beautiful dish twice.
+Really sad, isn’t it? Or as Fred would say, ‘The eternal hunger
+for what is new drives us on.’ Otherwise we’d swing around in
+a circle like horses on a merry-go-round. Therefore, long live
+the urge to change! What’s taking you so everlastingly long,
+Myra? I’m getting into bed already.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she did not get into bed at once. She ran about the room
+in her undershirt, putting this and that in order and looking
+for something here, and wasted time chattering and loitering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra was already in bed. “You’ll catch cold,” she said, shaking
+her head. “How can you dawdle around that way? You
+were ready a half hour ago. Turn out the unnecessary lights
+and creep into bed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gwen stretched her bare arms over her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am so restless,” she complained, “can’t you understand.
+Ah, Myra, you always act as if you were made of ice and snow.
+Really don’t you feel the wine going through your veins and
+thudding up against your heart, again and again.” She struck
+her breast regularly with her clenched fist. “And can’t you feel
+that it’s spring outside? Have you no longer any roots in the
+earth so that you can’t feel how the sap is fermenting in you—in
+you, as in every tree and bush.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stopped beside the bureau and laid her arms and her
+forehead against the smooth wood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sometimes I think that a poor mistreated, sawed up, polished
+piece of a tree like this still has a spark of life in it. And
+in spring, when the great orgy is preparing, it begins to feel a
+pulse and twitching in its poor polished wood. Feel it, there’s a
+throb like the soft beating of a heart in it. Then I think that the
+furniture is pleased with me. It feels my life frothing over,
+and that fulfills its desire and gives it rest, Myra!” With a bound
+she was on the edge of the bed, and was shaking Myra by the
+shoulders. “Are you more lifeless than that dead wood? It isn’t
+true and I don’t believe you are like that!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-277" class="pagenum" title="277"></a>
+She threw her arms around Myra, burrowing with her head
+among the pillows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why don’t you like me, Myra?” she whispered in her ear.
+“Tell me, is it because you are in love with Fred? It isn’t true
+that you’ve never been in love with a woman. And it isn’t true
+that you could not love me....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Love?” said Myra in a toneless voice. “What do you call
+love?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I call love making someone happy—and making myself
+happy by doing so. I call everything else friendship or idolizing
+or infatuation, infatuation at most. I want to know what you
+have against me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She knelt on the edge of the bed, tearing the night-gown
+from her shoulders like a mad woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must look at me! You must look at me! Where have
+I any defect that could repel you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are very beautiful,” said Myra with a painful smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, but you are more!” Gwen threw herself upon Myra,
+and kissed her mouth and eyelids, her neck and cheeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t want her,” thought Myra. “She has opened her heart
+to me and I have not urged her on. I am his comrade, I am his
+comrade....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rosy red waves surged up. They swept from her heart, over
+her throat up to her eyes. The room seemed to reel, as if the
+walls were struggling for breath, as if their heart were palpitating
+by fits and starts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly everything went still and bright. Like a dazzling
+light, like the blare of a trumpet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps a board had creaked in the floor very softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra started up, alert, sober.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Something was in the room that had not been there before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A violet blotch. And topping it, Fred’s face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fred’s eyes. Burning. Greedy. Completely unveiled like the
+eyes of rutting animals. Perfectly naked eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-278" class="pagenum" title="278"></a>
+Myra did not cry out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She threw off the soft body that lay choking her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A catch-phrase flashed through her mind which she could
+not forget again. It was the only thing she could think of, and
+her mind kept repeating it over and over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A put up job. All a put up job!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sat up and reached for her clothes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that moment Fred sprang at her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Myra,” he stammered, “my sweetest one!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She slapped his face with the palm of her hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had been prepared for resistance, for kicking, scratching
+and biting—he would have vanquished her laughingly. But
+the blow made him stagger back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra slipped into her clothes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A put up job,” she thought, “a put up job!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her hands did not shake in spite of her frantic haste. Not
+until she was dressed did she cast a quick glance at Fred.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mark of her hand on his pale face burned like a fiery
+brand. The wide lids were quivering over his eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A strange feeling took possession of Myra. A furious joy, “I
+caught him a good one.” And then a dawning realization,
+“This is the first time that I have ever touched that handsome
+face—that handsome face.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had never formulated it before in thought, it was as if her
+hands had always longed to stroke that face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An unutterable sorrow filled her heart. As if she had possessed
+something beautiful and precious and was first aware
+of it when it lay ruthlessly shattered and broken at her feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She walked quietly to and fro in the room, collecting her
+things. When she had to pass Fred she walked around him.
+He did not look at her, but he felt it and shuddered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gwen had crept out of her bed. She sat pink and naked on
+the big feather comforter. She had hunched up her shoulders
+and was playing rather embarrassedly with her toes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-279" class="pagenum" title="279"></a>
+The door to the adjoining room stood open. It was the door
+through which Fred had entered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A put up job,” thought Myra, “a put up job!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went with her hat and coat on to that door. With her
+hand on the latch, she stopped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am going into the next room,” she said quietly. “I have
+no desire to leave the hotel in the middle of the night. I will go
+at seven and leave the door into the hall open.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fred turned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Miss Rudloff,” he said hoarsely, “Miss Rudloff!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His two dark eyes in his pale face were like two open
+wounds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra closed the door behind her and threw the bolt with a
+creak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She did not turn on the light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She knew, she sensed—there were things everywhere, strange
+things, his things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After quite a long while she heard voices from the adjoining
+room, high and low, muffled and suppressed, but audible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dear God, what won’t I have to hear,” she thought. “Dear
+God, give me strength, give me strength. Let me die, if you
+can, but don’t let me go insane, so that I will do something—something
+perfectly terrible....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the worst thing was the odor in the room. The smell of
+cigarettes, the delicate scent of Russian leather, of soap, of vinegar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Myra threw the window wide open and moved a chair up
+to it. The night was cold. Myra trembled no matter how snugly
+she wrapped herself in her coat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She thought of the city which she would leave. Where would
+she go now—whither?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Should she let herself be driven on, homeless, restless, the
+quarry of passionate desire?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Or die?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-280" class="pagenum" title="280"></a>
+Yes, if she could but have believed in sleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But stronger at this moment than ever before she felt undeniably,
+inviolably, that there was in her something indestructible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was quite humble before that which she felt within her,
+with the humility of a mother who feels a strange life stir in
+her womb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My poor soul,” she said softly, “what have I done to you?
+Why have I never thought of taking care of and helping you?
+Why did I always want to set you wandering in the cold space
+between the stars? Poor soul, why do I have you, if you merely
+suffer on my account and I on yours? Sometime I shall know,
+sometime I shall learn all. I would not like to die, no, I would
+not like to die before I know why I have lived.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The memory of Eccarius crossed her mind—“No one ought
+to die before he has learned to love death.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I do not love death. I do not fear him, but I do not love
+him. I will learn to love him. I will live in order to learn to love
+death. Perhaps that is why we have to live. And perhaps that is
+why we have to suffer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The voices in the next room hushed. The strange familiar
+odor had disappeared from the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the sky the stars were paling before the first feeble light of
+a dawning March morning.
+</p>
+
+<p class="end">
+THE END
+</p>
+
+<div class="trnote chapter">
+<p class="transnote">
+Transcriber’s Notes
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This text was transcribed from the unchanged reprint edition in the collection
+<em>HOMOSEXUALITY. Lesbians and Gay Men in Society, History and Literature</em>,
+Arno Press: New York, 1975. Materials from a later date than the original
+publication year 1948, such as series title, editorial information, or
+publisher advertisements, have been omitted.
+</p>
+
+<p class="skip_in_txt">
+New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The original spelling was mostly preserved.
+A few obvious typographical and punctuation errors were silently amended.
+All other changes are shown here (before/after):
+</p>
+
+
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>
+... held the little flame for her asked in a casual tone, “You are a ...<br>
+... held the little flame for her <a href="#corr-1"><span class="underline">he</span></a> asked in a casual tone, “You are a ...<br>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+... up on the cushion of a chair and lit the gas-jet. <span class="underline">I</span> was evidently ...<br>
+... up on the cushion of a chair and lit the gas-jet. <a href="#corr-3"><span class="underline">It</span></a> was evidently ...<br>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+... is, if Gisela <span class="underline">with</span> allow me.” ...<br>
+... is, if Gisela <a href="#corr-9"><span class="underline">will</span></a> allow me.” ...<br>
+</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77582 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #77582
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77582)